Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of the Social Environment on DNA Methylation and Immune Function in Primates

包括人类在内的许多灵长类动物都生活在复杂的社会环境中，个体应对这种环境的能力差异很大。虽然有些人形成了稳定、积极的社会关系，但有些人却没有；同样，个人的社会地位也各不相同。对人类和非人类灵长类动物的研究表明，这些社会经验的变化会对生理、健康和生存产生深远的影响。该项目使用野生狒狒的行为和生物学数据来检验社会逆境通过改变基因表达方式影响健康相关特征的假设。识别这些联系对于理解灵长类动物社会性的进化至关重要，对于解决人类社会逆境对健康的影响也至关重要。该项目的其他更广泛的影响包括促进研究合作、本科生培训和传播基因组研究的新方法。这个为期两年的项目将研究来自肯尼亚安博塞利狒狒种群的88只成年雄性狒狒，以调查低社会地位和/或社会隔离是否会导致DNA甲基化的变化，以及这些变化是否预测个体如何应对免疫挑战。为此，研究人员将把行为数据与全基因组DNA甲基化水平和免疫相关基因表达模式的测量相结合。由此产生的数据将揭示社会经历是否以及在多大程度上影响可能有助于野生灵长类动物健康和生存的免疫特征。

Many primates, including humans, live in complex social environments, and the capacity to deal with such environments can vary substantially across individuals. While some individuals form stable, positive social bonds, others do not; similarly, individuals vary in their achieved social status. Research in both humans and non-human primates suggests that variation in these social experiences can have profound effects on physiology, health, and survival. This project uses behavioral and biological data from wild baboons to test the hypothesis that social adversity influences health-related traits by altering the way that genes are expressed. Identifying these connections is crucial for understanding the evolution of primate sociality, and for addressing the well-documented health consequences of social adversity in humans. Other broader impacts of the project include fostering of research collaborations, undergraduate training, and dissemination of novel methods for genomic studies. This two-year project will study 88 adult male baboons from the Amboseli, Kenya baboon population, to investigate whether low social status and/or social isolation lead to changes in DNA methylation, and whether these changes predict how individuals respond to an immune challenge. To do so, investigators will combine behavioral data with measurements of genome-wide DNA methylation levels and immune-related gene expression patterns. The resulting data will shed new light on whether, and to what degree, social experiences influence immunological traits that likely contribute to health and survival in wild primates.