RESUMO
Elephants live in a complex society based on matrilineal groups. Management of captive elephants is difficult, partly because each elephant has a unique personality. For a better understanding of elephant well being in captivity, it would be helpful to systematically evaluate elephants' personalities and their underlying biological basis. We sent elephant' personality questionnaires to keepers of 75 elephants. We also used 196 elephant DNA samples to search for genetic polymorphisms in genes expressed in the brain that have been suggested to be related to personality traits. Three genes, androgen receptor (AR), fragile X related mental retardation protein interacting protein (NUFIP2), and acheate-scute homologs 1 (ASH1) contained polymorphic regions. We examined the association of personality with intraspecific genetic variation in 17 Asian and 28 African elephants. The results suggest that the ASH1 genotype was associated with neuroticism in Asian elephants. Subjects with short alleles had lower scores of neuroticism than those with long alleles. This is the first report of an association between a genetic polymorphism and personality in elephants.
Assuntos
Animais de Zoológico , Transtornos de Ansiedade/genética , Elefantes/genética , Elefantes/psicologia , Variação Genética , Determinação da Personalidade/estatística & dados numéricos , Personalidade/genética , Região do Genoma do Complexo Achaete-Scute/genética , Técnicos em Manejo de Animais , Animais , Sequência de Bases , Canadá , Primers do DNA/genética , Humanos , Japão , Repetições Minissatélites/genética , Dados de Sequência Molecular , Neuroticismo , Receptores Androgênicos/genética , Análise de Sequência de DNA/veterinária , Inquéritos e Questionários , Estados UnidosRESUMO
In the present study, we elucidated that nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) participates in the gliogenic specification of mouse mesencephalic neural crest cells. Whereas transfection of the NF-κB expression vector stimulated gliogenesis, treatment with the dominant negative NF-κB expression vector or NF-κB small interfering RNA suppressed the promotion of gliogenic specification by FGF treatment or Notch activation. This suppression was recovered by the treatment with the Deltex-1 expression vector or mammalian hairy and enhancer of split homologs expression vectors. Furthermore, transfection of the inhibitor of κB (IκB) expression vector inhibited gliogenesis. In addition, treatment with the NF-κB expression vector promoted the expression of Deltex-1. These data suggest that NF-κB signaling is implicated in the gliogenesis through the interaction with Notch signaling. Moreover, cells that contain Sox10 expressed NF-κB and Deltex-1 in the presumptive trigeminal ganglia of embryonic day 9.0-9.5 mouse embryos. This observation supports our notion that the interaction between NF-κB signaling and Notch signaling plays an important role in the gliogenic specification of mouse mesencephalic neural crest cells.
