2012年8月28日 讯 /生物谷BIOON/ --在对小鼠开展的一项研究中，美国塔夫斯大学医学院研究人员建议道，一名女性患上焦虑症和社交功能障碍的风险可能依赖于她父母的经历，特别是她父亲年轻时的经历。这项研究在线刊登在Biological Psychiatry期刊上，提示着在年轻时，长期社会不稳定导致的压力促进精子细胞发生表观遗传变化，这种变化能够导致多代女性后代患上精神疾病。
塔夫斯大学医学院博士后研究员Lorena Saavedra-Rodríguez博士说，“压力的长期影响能够是有害无益的。我们首先发现年轻的小鼠处于长期社会不稳定---即小鼠笼子组成持续地发生变化---之中，到成年时表现出焦急的行为和较差的社交能力。这些变化在雌性小鼠中是特别明显的。”
研究人员然后研究了这些之前处于压力之下的小鼠的后代，并且观察到再次是雌性而不是雄性后代表现出增加的焦虑感和较差的社交能力。更为显著的是，即便是处于压力之下的雄性小鼠并没有表现出任何这些行为变化，但是在与没有处于压力之下的雌性小鼠交配之后，它们把这些行为传递到它们的雌性后代。此外，雄性后代也能够把这些行为传递到下一代的雌性后代。
论文通信作者Larry A. Feig博士说，“我们当前正在寻找处于压力之下的父本小鼠的精子中的能够解释这种遗传现象的生化变化。这项研究有望促进人们努力确定类似现象是否能够适用于人类。”(生物谷Bioon.com)
本文编译自Male mice exposed to chronic social stress have anxious female offspring
doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2012.06.035
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Chronic Social Instability Induces Anxiety and Defective Social Interactions Across Generations
Lorena Saavedra-Rodríguez, Larry A. Feig
Background Chronic social instability during adolescence and early adulthood is known to produce a variety of long-lasting effects that may contribute to future psychiatric disorders. However, its potential to affect future generations has not been tested. Methods Female and male mice were exposed to chronic social stress involving social instability and disruption of social hierarchy from postnatal day 27 to 76. After treatment, a group of animals was used to evaluate long-term behavioral effects of the stress exposure, and other mice were used to generate F1, F2, and F3 offspring, to test for behavioral effects across generations. Results Chronic social instability during adolescence and early adulthood induces persistent behavioral alterations, including enhanced anxiety and social deficits that are transmitted predominantly to females across at least three generations. Both mothers and fathers can transmit all of these altered behaviors to their F1 offspring. However, only F1 fathers transmit all of them to their F2 and F3 daughters. In the F1 generation, enhanced anxiety and social deficits are associated with elevated serum corticosterone levels; however, in the F2 and F3 generations, they are not. Conclusions These findings support the idea that individual risk for psychiatric disorders that involve enhanced anxiety and/or social dysfunction may be dependent not only on the specific alleles of genes that are inherited from one's parents and on one's own experiences, but also on the experiences of one's parents when they were young.
