The social environment encountered early during development can temporarily or permanently influence life history decisions and behaviour of individuals and correspondingly shape molecular pathways. In the highly social cichlid fish Neolamprologus pulcher, deprivation of brood care permanently affects social behaviour and alters the expression of stress axis genes in juveniles and adults. It is unclear when gene expression patterns change during early life depending on social experience, and which genes are involved. We compared brain gene expression of N. pulcher at two time points during the social experience phase when juveniles were reared either with or without brood care, and one time point shortly afterwards. We compared (a) whole transcriptomes and (b) expression of 79 genes related to stress regulation, in order to define a neurogenomic state of stress for each fish. At developmental day 75, that is, after the social experience phase, 43 genes were down-regulated in fish having experienced social deprivation, while two genes involved in learning and memory and in post-translational modifications of proteins (PTM), respectively, were up-regulated. Down-regulated genes were mainly associated with immunity, PTM and brain function. In contrast, during the experience phase no genes were differentially expressed when assessing the whole transcriptome. When focusing on the neurogenomic state associated with the stress response, we found that individuals from the two social treatments differed in how their brain gene expression profiles changed over developmental stages. Our results indicate that the early social environment influences the transcriptional activation in fish brains, both during and after an early social experience, possibly affecting plasticity, immune system function and stress axis regulation.

中文翻译：

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在高度社会化的丽鱼科鱼类早期发育过程中，社会经验的转录组学特征。

在发育早期遇到的社会环境可以暂时或永久影响个人的生活史决定和行为，并相应地影响分子途径。在高度社会化的丽鱼科鱼类Neolamprologus pulcher中，缺乏育雏服务会永久影响社会行为，并改变少年和成年后应激轴基因的表达。目前尚不清楚在早期的生活中，基因表达方式的变化取决于社会经验以及涉及哪些基因。我们在社会经验阶段的两个时间点比较了N. pulcher的脑基因表达，这两个阶段是在有或没有育雏的情况下饲养幼体的，而不久之后是一个时间点。我们比较了（a）完整的转录组和（b）与压力调节有关的79个基因的表达，为了定义每条鱼的神经基因组状态。在发育的第75天，即在社交​​经历阶段之后，经历了社会剥夺的鱼中有43个基因被下调，而分别涉及学习和记忆以及蛋白质翻译后修饰（PTM）的两个基因被下调。上调。下调的基因主要与免疫力，PTM和脑功能有关。相反，在体验阶段，评估整个转录组时没有基因差异表达。当专注于与压力反应相关的神经基因组状态时，我们发现来自两种社会治疗方法的个体在大脑基因表达谱在发育阶段的变化方式不同。