RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Identification of differential hypothalamic DNA methylation and gene expression associated with sexual partner preferences in rams
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2022.01.18.476818
DO 10.1101/2022.01.18.476818
A1 Surajit Bhattacharya
A1 Rebecka Amodei
A1 Eric Vilain
A1 Charles E. Roselli
YR 2022
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/01/18/2022.01.18.476818.abstract
AB The sheep is a valuable model to test whether hormone mechanisms that sexually differentiate the brain underlie the expression of sexual partner preferences because as many as 8% of rams prefer same-sex partners. Epigenetic factors such as DNA methylation act as mediators in the interaction between steroid hormones and the genome. Variations in the epigenome could be important in determining morphological or behavior differences among individuals of the same species. In this study, we explored DNA methylation differences in the hypothalamus of male oriented rams (MORs) and female oriented rams (FORs). We employed reduced representation bisulfite sequencing (RRBS) to generate a genome-wide map of DNA methylation and RNA-Seq to profile the transcriptome. We found substantial DNA methylation and gene expression differences between FORs and MORs. Although none of the differentially methylated genes yielded significant functional terms directly associated with sex development, three differentially expressed genes were identified that have been associated previously with sexual behaviors. We hypothesize that these differences are involved in the phenotypic variation in ram sexual partner preferences, whereas future studies will have to find the specific mechanisms. Our results add an intriguing new dimension to sheep behavior that should be useful for further understanding epigenetic and transcriptomic involvement.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.