Description
Adult neuroplasticity is an adaptive process by which animals can alter behavior in response to shifting environmental stimuli. Naked mole-rats are eusocial animals that reside in colonies where reproduction is restricted to a single breeding female and her male consort(s); all other animals are pre-pubertal and socially subordinate. Valproic acid (VPA) is a histone deacetylase inhibitor drug that enhances social defeat in hamsters and alters social castes in ants. To test the hypothesis that acetylation is involved in social behaviour in naked mole-rats, we administered VPA to subordinates for seven days and scored behaviour during opposite-sex pairing. VPA-treated males received increased interest from their untreated female partner. Protein quantification of histone 3 acetylation marks revealed increased H3K18 acetylation, a mark for cell proliferation, in the livers of VPA-treated animals. This indicates a potential mechanism related to increased expression of urinary proteins. Collectively, these data demonstrate altered sociosexual signaling in male, but not female, naked mole-rats treated with VPA, suggesting a sex-specific role for acetylation in chemosignaling via altered liver production of urinary proteins.
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