title: Social overcrowding as a chronic stress model that increases adiposity in mice.
abstract: Stress is a widely recognized risk factor for psychiatric and metabolic disorders. A number of animal models utilizing various stressors have been developed to facilitate our understanding in the pathophysiology of stress-related dysfunctions. The most commonly used chronic stress paradigms include the unpredictable chronic mild stress paradigm, the social defeat paradigm and the social deprivation paradigm. Here we assess the potential of social crowding as an alternative chronic stress model to study the effects on affective behaviors and metabolic disturbances. Ten-week-old male C57BL/6 mice were housed in groups of four (control) or eight (social crowding; SC) in standard cage for 9 weeks. Exploration, anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors were assessed in the open field test, the elevated T-maze, the novelty-suppressed feeding test and the forced swim test. SC mice exhibited a modest anxiety-like phenotype without change in depressive-like behaviors. Nine weeks of social crowding did not affect the body weight, but robustly increased adiposity as determined by increased mass of fat depots. Consistent with the increased fat content, serum leptin was markedly elevated in the SC mice. Specific changes in gene expression were also observed in the hypothalamus and the white adipose tissue following SC housing. Our study demonstrates the potential of social crowding as an alternative model for the study of stress-related metabolic and behavioral dysfunctions.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA. Electronic address: en-ju.lin@osumc.edu.
authors.forename: En-Ju D
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Meng
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Eugene Y
authors.initials: EY
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Magee
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA.
authors.forename: Colin W
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Stets
authors.affiliation: Cancer Genetics and Neuroscience Program, Department of Molecular Virology, Immunology and Medical Genetics, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Ohio State University, 912 Biomedical Research Tower, 460 West 12th Ave, Columbus, OH, USA; Functional Genomics and Translational Neuroscience Lab, Department of Molecular Medicine and Pathology, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
authors.forename: Matthew J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: During
mesh_terms: D052242:Adiponectin / Q000097:blood; D050154:Adiposity / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology; D003345:Corticosterone / Q000097:blood; D003441:Crowding; D003863:Depression / Q000503:physiopathology; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004435:Eating / Q000502:physiology; D004777:Environment; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D006799:Housing, Animal; D007334:Insulin-Like Growth Factor I / Q000378:metabolism; D020738:Leptin / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*
chemical_list: D052242:Adiponectin; D020738:Leptin; D007334:Insulin-Like Growth Factor I; D003345:Corticosterone
keywords: Adrb1; Anxiety; C57BL/6 mice; Crh; Npy; Obesity; Sgk1; Social stress; Ucp2; White adipose tissue (WAT)