雄鼠社会优势地位相关的信息素及其表观遗传的机制

很多啮齿动物存在社会等级结构，优势雄性释放的气味对雌性吸引力更强，常常有高的繁殖成功和父权机会。但是在穴居的夜行性鼠类中，很多有关社会等级行为机制的研究难于在野外开展。本项目拟利用遗传背景清楚和基因组数据等完善的实验室纯品小鼠（小家鼠）等为主要研究对象，将行为学、化学、高通量测序、分子生物学、蛋白质等技术相结合，主要研究(1)优势地位尿液化学信号的组成，挥发性信号和蛋白(MUPs)信号的相互关系;(2)社会等级导致的内分泌分化是否对优势化学信号的产生有效调控作用;(3)社会等级的分化与基因表达变化和生理质量的关系;(4)攻击、社会地位及其相关化学信号的遗传特点及表观遗传学的调控作用；(5)化学信号的分化对优势雄鼠繁殖成功中的贡献率。总的目标是阐明社会优势地位相关的化学信号形成机制和对后代适合度影响的特征及遗传机理。本项目计划发表高质量英文文章4-6篇，培养研究生和博士后3-5名。

Many rodent species lives in a hierarchal social group of conspecies, where dominant males emit social odor more attarctive to females and have higher reproductive success and paternity rates than suborinate males do. However,in burrow-living and nocturnal small rodents, the work on the mechanisms underlying social hierarchies is diffcult to run in nature.In the current proposals, we are palnning to mainly utilize laboratory mice (Mus musculus) with known genetic backgrounds and genome data as animal models, integrate behavioral tests with the methods including chemistry,next generation sequencing, molecular biology, protein and so on and focus our studies on (1) chemical components of social domiance-related odorant signals, the interactions between urine-borne organic volatiles and major urine proteins (MUPs); (2) social status-induced differnetiation in blood hormones such as testosterones and corticorsterone and its regulation of social dominance-related chemical signals; (3) inetractions between social interaction and gene expression in some organs such as frontal cortex and hippocampus; (4)heritability of aggression, social dominance and chemical signals, and its epigenetic regulation; (5) the contribution of social dominance-related chemical signals to reproducitve success and paternity.We aimed at elucidating the mechanisms underlying the social dominance chemical signal production and its effects on fitness of the fathered offspring. 4-6 high quality papers involved in the project are expected to publish and 4-5 graduate students and postdoctors are going to be trained.