Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Study links fox domestication to gene activity in the pituitary gland

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study of foxes offers new insights into the brain changes that occur in wild canids as they become more tame, researchers report. The study links fox domestication to changes in gene activity in the pituitary gland, a brain center that kicks out hormones to regulate various bodily functions, including the stress response.

The study, published in the journal G3: Genes | Genomes | Genetics, adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that domestication alters animals’ reactivity to stress.

U. of I. animal sciences professor Anna Kukekova led a study of hormone changes associated with canid domestication.

U. of I. animal sciences professor Anna Kukekova led a study of hormone changes associated with canid domestication.

“Other studies have seen a relationship between tameness and stress responses in animals,” said Jessica Hekman, the first author of the paper who worked on the study as a graduate student in the laboratory of University of Illinois animal sciences professor Anna Kukekova. Hekman is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. “In particular, the characteristic reduction in fearfulness of domesticated animals is closely linked to reductions in blood levels of ACTH, a hormone released by the anterior pituitary gland that, among other things, drives the stress response.”

To get a better view of how this might occur, the researchers looked at gene activity in the anterior pituitary glands of foxes in a breeding program at the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, designed to study the evolutionary processes associated with domestication. They compared six foxes selectively bred for tameness and six foxes selectively bred for aggression.

Postdoctoral researcher Jessica Hekman, pictured here with her dog, studies canid behavior and evolution.

Postdoctoral researcher Jessica Hekman, pictured here with her dog, studies canid behavior and evolution.

“Previous studies have found that ACTH levels in the anterior pituitary do not differ between tame and aggressive fox strains,” Kukekova said. “This means that differential expression of the gene encoding ACTH may not cause the differences seen in blood levels of this hormone, and some other mechanism is reducing ACTH in the bloodstream of tame foxes.”

“Our analysis revealed that the differences between tame and aggressive foxes may lie in cells in the anterior pituitary gland, which can change their shapes to communicate with one another about when it’s time to release stress hormones,” Hekman said. “Their pituitary glands may produce the same amount of stress hormones but be less efficient at getting those hormones into the bloodstream.”

“If confirmed, our finding could help explain why tame foxes are not stressed so easily as foxes that have not been selected for tameness,” Kukekova said.

The National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture supported this research.

Editor’s notes:
To reach Anna Kukekova, email avk@illinois.edu.
To reach Jessica Hekman, email jph@dogzombie.com
The paper “Anterior pituitary transcriptome suggests differences in ACTH release in tame and aggressive foxes” is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau.

DOI: 10.1534/g3.117.300508

 

 

Read Next

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010