New Horizons in Health An Integrative Approach (2001) / Chapter Skim
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Environmentally Induced Gene Expression
Environmentally Induced Gene Expression
Pages 63-72
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From page 63... ...
Whether a particular gene is expressed and the degree to which it is expressed depend strongly on the environmental conditions experienced by the organism. Such gene expression is implicated in both positive and negative health effects.
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From page 64... ...
The human genome project and the recent development of microarray chip technologies offer researchers remarkable tools for examining the development of vulnerability or resistance to disease. Microarray chips are thin wafers, approximately the size of a dime, containing a densely packed, orderly arrangement of thousands of different probes, utilized for matching known and unknown DNA samples.
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From page 65... ...
An important challenge for future research is to understand how psychosocial adversity over the life course of low-birth-weight babies having experienced IUGRis related to subsequent processes of gene expression that culminate in diabetes, coronary heart disease, or both. PERSONAL TIES AND GENE EXPRESSION IN MIDLIFE Increasing evidence documents the role of personal ties on gene expression in midlife.
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From page 66... ...
As adults the offspring of mothers exhibiting high levels of LG-ABN care showed reduced plasma ACTH and corticosterone responses to restraint stress. These animals also show significantly increased hippocampal glucocorticoid receptor mRNA expression, enhanced glucocorticoid negative feedback sensitivity, and decreased hypothalamic corticotropin-releasing hormone mRNA levels.
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From page 67... ...
Following on these results, an important line of research, linked to pathway studies in humans that are the core of this report, is identification of the features of rat life histories and their relationship to gene expression that contribute to downstream health outcomes. INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF BEHAVIOR Another line of recent animal research having profound implications for future investigations in humans centers around evidence that individual differences in maternal behavior are transmitted across generations (in both rats and nonhuman primates)
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From page 68... ...
While the selective breeding implies a genetic background, the expression of the hypertensive trait is also influenced by epigenetic factors. SHR pups reared by wild-type WKY mothers do exhibit hypertension to the extent of kin reared by SHR dams.
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From page 69... ...
show that, as adults, monkeys reared under VFD conditions have increased levels of CRF. Increased central CRF drive suggests altered noradrenergic and serotonergic responses to stress, exactly as seen in adolescent VFD-reared animals.
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From page 70... ...
RECOMMENDATIONS NIH should support integrative research aimed at understanding the role of environmentally induced gene expression in disease etiology and promotion of health. This initiative should include: · studies that combine environmental manipulations with physiological and molecular assessments to provide refined understanding of conditions leading to dysfunction and the mechanisms that preserve allostasis; · studies that explore in animal models the relationships between chronic stress, interactions among intervening systems (e.g., HPA axis and immune systems)
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From page 71... ...
1998 "Effect of cross-fostering on neonatal sodium balance and adult blood pressure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat" Clinical Experiments in Pl7armacological Pl7ysiology 25/12:1024-1031. Gulmezouglu M, de Onis M, Villar J
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From page 72... ...
Sanders BJ, Gray MJ. 1997 "Early environmental influences can attenuate the blood pressure response to acute stress in borderline hypertensive rats" Physiological Behavior 61/ 5:749-754.
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