Genetic Influences on Parental Care and Parent-Offspring Interactions

遗传对父母照顾和亲子互动的影响

• 批准号: 1354358
• 负责人: Allen Moore
• 金额: $ 63.5万
• 依托单位: University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1354358&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Genetic; Influences; Parental; Care; Parent

Understanding the mechanism that regulated social behavior has implications across biology and from basic research to health related concerns. In mammals there is larger body of study on the critical role of the peptide oxytocin in the formation of social recognition and bonds. Here the researchers proposes to examine the insect equivalent, inotocin, to determine if it plays the same role in stimulate parenting and parent-offspring interactions in the subsocial beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides. This insect has elaborate parental care, including direct regurgitation of food to begging babies, by both males and females. The genome of this beetle has recently been sequenced, and this provides the tools to identify genes that are predicted to play a role in social tolerance, parenting, and pair bonds. The proposed research tests three ideas: 1) genetic pathways can be predicted; 2) sex differences in parenting reflect turning on and off of different genes in the two sexes; 3) the same genes influence social interactions in both parents and their offspring. This research will lead to a greater understanding of the genetics underpinning difference in parenting and how genetics influences social interactions. Developing insect systems to understand genetic influences on social behavior can help identify of genetic problems may lead to asocial behavior, and provide a way to test possible solutions. This research makes use of candidate gene screens, transcriptomics, and pharmacological manipulations to examine the extent to which genetic influences on social behavior can be and are common across species. A second goal is to examine how sex differences in parenting arise. Finally, if time and resources allow, the extent that social exchanges, such as parent-offspring interactions, involve pleiotropy will be examined. Genes are predicted based on known functions in pathways that are predicted to have been coopted behaviors involved in the evolution of parental care. For example, parenting is predicted to involve a change in mating, aggression and feeding and so genes with known functions in these pathways should also be involved in parenting. This further suggests that genes involved in parenting will be taxonomically independent. Gene expression patterns will be examined in neural tissue from individuals that are not yet parenting, actively parenting beetles, and those that have completed parenting. Patterns of expression will be evaluated with qRT-PCR. Confirmation of the function of genes with significant changes in expression will involve either pharmacological manipulations or RNAi. Sex differences in parenting have been identified with transcrioptomic studies, and these will be verified using qRT-PCR. Gene expression in larvae that are begging and receiving parenting will be examined to test the hypothesis that the same genes involved in parenting are involved in soliciting parenting. In addition to testing these hypotheses, this research provides novel genetic resources for the research community: It also identifies genetic influences on social interactions in a novel context, examining the generality of function of genes influencing social interactions. Finally, this research facilitates comparisons between organisms with increasingly complex parental care and social behavior. In terms of broader impacts, the research will focus on developing human resources of both undergraduate and postgraduate researchers, and develop international collaborations involving students at all stages.

理解调节社会行为的机制具有跨越生物学的意义，从基础研究到与健康相关的问题。在哺乳动物中，有更多关于缩宫素在社会认知和纽带形成中的关键作用的研究。在这里，研究人员建议检查昆虫的等价物肌托素，以确定它是否在刺激亚社会甲虫的父母养育和亲子互动方面起到同样的作用。这种昆虫有精心的父母照顾，包括由雄性和雌性直接将食物反流给乞讨的婴儿。这种甲虫的基因组最近被测序，这为识别预计在社会宽容、育儿和配对纽带中发挥作用的基因提供了工具。这项拟议的研究测试了三个想法：1)遗传路径是可以预测的；2)父母教养方式的性别差异反映了两性不同基因的开启和关闭；3)相同的基因影响父母及其子女的社交互动。这项研究将使人们更好地理解养育方式差异的遗传学基础，以及遗传学是如何影响社会互动的。开发昆虫系统来了解遗传对社会行为的影响，可以帮助识别可能导致非社会行为的遗传问题，并提供一种测试可能解决方案的方法。这项研究利用候选基因筛选、转录和药理学操作来检验遗传对社会行为的影响在多大程度上可以跨物种并普遍存在。第二个目标是研究育儿方式中的性别差异是如何产生的。最后，如果时间和资源允许，将考察社会交流，如亲子互动，涉及多效性的程度。基因是根据已知的功能预测的，这些路径被预测为参与父母照料进化的增选行为。例如，育儿预计会涉及交配、攻击性和进食的变化，因此在这些途径中具有已知功能的基因也应该参与育儿。这进一步表明，参与育儿的基因在分类上将是独立的。基因表达模式将从尚未为人父母的个体、主动养育甲虫的个体和那些已经完成育儿的个体的神经组织中进行检测。表达模式将通过qRT-PCR进行评估。对表达有显著变化的基因功能的确认将涉及到药物操作或RNAi。父母教养方式的性别差异已经通过转录光学研究得到了确认，这些差异将通过qRT-PCR进行验证。研究人员将检查乞讨和接受育儿的幼虫的基因表达情况，以检验这样一种假设，即参与育儿的相同基因也参与请求育儿。除了检验这些假说，这项研究还为研究界提供了新的遗传资源：它还在新的背景下确定了基因对社会互动的影响，考察了影响社会互动的基因功能的共性。最后，这项研究促进了具有日益复杂的父母照料和社会行为的生物之间的比较。在更广泛的影响方面，研究将侧重于开发本科生和研究生的人力资源，并发展涉及所有阶段的学生的国际合作。