title: Neuromolecular responses to social challenge: common mechanisms across mouse, stickleback fish, and honey bee.
abstract: Certain complex phenotypes appear repeatedly across diverse species due to processes of evolutionary conservation and convergence. In some contexts like developmental body patterning, there is increased appreciation that common molecular mechanisms underlie common phenotypes; these molecular mechanisms include highly conserved genes and networks that may be modified by lineage-specific mutations. However, the existence of deeply conserved mechanisms for social behaviors has not yet been demonstrated. We used a comparative genomics approach to determine whether shared neuromolecular mechanisms could underlie behavioral response to territory intrusion across species spanning a broad phylogenetic range: house mouse (Mus musculus), stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus), and honey bee (Apis mellifera). Territory intrusion modulated similar brain functional processes in each species, including those associated with hormone-mediated signal transduction and neurodevelopment. Changes in chromosome organization and energy metabolism appear to be core, conserved processes involved in the response to territory intrusion. We also found that several homologous transcription factors that are typically associated with neural development were modulated across all three species, suggesting that shared neuronal effects may involve transcriptional cascades of evolutionarily conserved genes. Furthermore, immunohistochemical analyses of a subset of these transcription factors in mouse again implicated modulation of energy metabolism in the behavioral response. These results provide support for conserved genetic "toolkits" that are used in independent evolutions of the response to social challenge in diverse taxa.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Departments of Entomology, Neuroscience Program, Department of Entomology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802; and ccr22@illinois.edu generobi@illinois.edu ljstubbs@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Clare C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Rittschof
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Illinois Informatics Institute.
authors.forename: Syed Abbas
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Bukhari
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, and.
authors.forename: Laura G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Sloofman
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Illinois Informatics Institute.
authors.forename: Joseph M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Troy
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology.
authors.forename: Derek
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Caetano-Anollés
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Departments of Entomology.
authors.forename: Amy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cash-Ahmed
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Neuroscience Program.
authors.forename: Molly
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kent
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology.
authors.forename: Xiaochen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Genomics Core, Lerner Research Institute, The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, OH 44195.
authors.forename: Yibayiri O
authors.initials: YO
authors.lastname: Sanogo
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Neuroscience Program.
authors.forename: Patricia A
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Weisner
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Cell and Developmental Biology.
authors.forename: Huimin
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Neuroscience Program, Animal Biology, Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801;
authors.forename: Alison M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Bioengineering, and.
authors.forename: Jian
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Departments of Entomology, Computer Science.
authors.forename: Saurabh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sinha
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Departments of Entomology, Neuroscience Program, Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801; ccr22@illinois.edu generobi@illinois.edu ljstubbs@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Gene E
authors.initials: GE
authors.lastname: Robinson
authors.affiliation: Institute for Genomic Biology, Neuroscience Program, Cell and Developmental Biology, ccr22@illinois.edu generobi@illinois.edu ljstubbs@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Stubbs
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001516:Bees / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D005075:Biological Evolution; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D017931:DNA Primers / Q000235:genetics; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D023281:Genomics / Q000379:methods; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D051379:Mice; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology; D023701:Smegmamorpha / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D013045:Species Specificity; D013731:Territoriality; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D017931:DNA Primers; D014157:Transcription Factors
keywords: NF-κB signaling; aggression; brain metabolism; genetic hotspot