Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2022 Jan;337(1):15-23. doi: 10.1002/jez.2501. Epub 2021 Sep 9.
Exposure to stress is a risk factor for perturbed mental health, including impoverished regulation of emotional and physiological responses that accompany anxiety and mood disorders, substance abuse and behavioral disorders. Such disruptions to well-being could be triggered by discrete environmental events or pervasive early life stress (ELS) resulting for example from adverse caregiving. Recent data mostly collected from rodents exposed to anthropogenic stressors suggest that one way via which the detrimental effects of such stress extend beyond the exposed population to future offspring is via stress-induced alterations of RNA found in the paternal germline. In contrast, less attention has been paid to how naturally occurring stress in males might influence offspring biology and behavior. In this study, we used a translational nonhuman primate model of ELS caused by naturally occurring adverse caregiving of infant macaques to (1) profile total RNA in the adolescent male germline, and (2) identify how those RNA profiles are affected by exposure to ELS. Our findings that the top 100 transcripts identified correspond to transcripts related to germline biology and reproduction demonstrate the validity and feasibility of profiling RNA in the germline of rhesus macaques. While our small sample sizes precluded definitive assessment of stress-induced alterations of RNA in the male germline of rhesus macaques that experienced ELS, our study sets the foundation for future investigations of how early adversity might alter the male germline, across species and in experimental protocols that involve anthropogenic vs natural stressors.
暴露于压力是精神健康失调的一个风险因素，包括情绪和生理反应调节受损，这伴随着焦虑和情绪障碍、药物滥用和行为障碍。这种对健康的破坏可能是由离散的环境事件或普遍的早期生活压力（ELS）触发的，例如由于不良的养育。最近的数据主要是从接触人为压力源的啮齿动物中收集的，这些数据表明，这种压力的有害影响超出暴露人群并延伸到后代的一种方式是通过应激诱导的父系生殖细胞中的 RNA 改变。相比之下，人们对男性中自然发生的压力如何影响后代的生物学和行为关注较少。在这项研究中，我们使用了一种由婴儿猕猴自然发生的不良养育引起的 ELS 的转化非人类灵长类动物模型，（1）对青春期雄性生殖细胞中的总 RNA 进行分析，（2）确定这些 RNA 谱如何受到 ELS 的影响。我们发现，前 100 个转录本对应于与生殖细胞生物学和生殖相关的转录本，这证明了在恒河猴生殖细胞中分析 RNA 的有效性和可行性。虽然我们的小样本量排除了对 ELS 中经历过 ELS 的恒河猴雄性生殖细胞中 RNA 应激诱导改变的明确评估，但我们的研究为未来研究早期逆境如何改变跨物种的雄性生殖细胞奠定了基础，以及在涉及人为和自然压力源的实验方案中。
