Investigation on the sex difference in the epigenetic regulation of the CRF gene in the hypothalamus

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Male and female respond differently to various stress. In this study, the epigenetic status of the CRF gene promoter in the praventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus of male and female rats were investigated in order to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of the sex differences in the stress response. No sex difference was observed in basal CRF expression in the PVN, whereas the restraint-stress induced increase in the CRF expresson in the female rats were larger than that of the male. Regarding the epigenetic status of the CRF promoter region in the PVN, no sexdifference was observed in the DNA methylation profile, whereas the level of histone acetylation after restraint stress tends to higher in the female. These results indicate the involvement of the histone modification but not DNA methylation in sexdifference in the CRF expression.