Perinatal nutrition interacts with genetic background to alter behavior in a parent ‐of‐origin dependent manner in adult Collaborative Cross mice

Previous studies in animal models and humans have shown that exposure to nutritional deficiencies in the perinatal period increases the risk of psychiatric disease. Less well understood is how such effects are modulated by the combination of genetic background and parent‐of‐origin. To explore this, we exposed female mice from 20 Collaborative Cross (CC) strains to either protein deficient, vitamin D deficient, methyl donor enriched or standard diet during the perinatal period. These CC females were then crossed to a male from a different CC strain to produce reciprocal F1 hybrid females comprising 10 distinct genetic backgrounds. The adult F1 females were then tested in the open field, light/dark, stress‐induced hyperthermia, forced swim and restraint stress assays. Our experimental design allowed us to estimate effects of genetic background, perinatal diet, parent‐of‐origin and their interactions on behavior. Genetic background significantly affected all assessed phenotypes. Perinatal diet exposure interacted with genetic background to affect body weight, basal body temperature, anxiety‐like behavior and stress response. In 8 of 9 genetic backgrounds, parent‐of‐origin effects were observed on multiple phenotypes. Additionally, we identified a small number of diet‐by‐parent‐of‐origin effects on body weight, stress response, anxiety‐ and depressive‐like behavior. Our data show that rodent behaviors that model psychiatric disorders are affected by ge...
Source: Genes, Brain and Behavior - Category: Genetics & Stem Cells Authors: Tags: Original Article Source Type: research