Early life stressful experiences escalate aggressive behavior in adulthood via changes in transthyretin expression and function
Abstract
Escalated and inappropriate levels of aggressive behavior referred to as pathological in psychiatry can lead to violent outcomes with detrimental impact on health and society. Early life stressful experiences might increase the risk of developing pathological aggressive behavior in adulthood, though molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we provide prefrontal cortex and hypothalamus specific transcriptome profiles of peripubertal stress (PPS) exposed Balb/c adult male mice exhibiting escalated aggression and adult female mice resilient to such aberrant behavioral responses. We identify transthyretin (TTR), a well known thyroid hormone transporter, as a key regulator of PPS induced escalated aggressive behavior in males. Brain-region-specific long-term changes in Ttr gene expression and thyroid hormone (TH) availability were evident in PPS induced escalated aggressive male mice, circulating TH being unaltered. Ttr promoter methylation marks were also altered being hypermethylated in hypothalamus and hypomethylated in prefrontal cortex corroborating with its expression pattern. Further, Ttr knockdown in hypothalamus resulted in escalated aggressive behavior in males without PPS and also reduced TH levels and expression of TH-responsive genes (Nrgn, Trh, and Hr). Escalated aggressive behavior along with reduced Ttr gene expression and TH levels in hypothalamus was also evident in next generation F1 male progenies. Our findings reveal that stressful experiences during puberty might trigger lasting escalated aggression by modulating TTR expression in brain. TTR can serve as a potential target in reversal of escalated aggression and related psychopathologies.
Editor's evaluation
The adolescent phase of life, particularly that surrounding puberty, is a sensitive period for brain development such that adverse experiences during that time have enduring negative impacts but the mechanisms for how this occurs are largely unknown. This important study provides convincing evidence for an unexpected role for the thyroid hormone transporter, transthyretin, which shows region-specific changes in expression following peri-pubertal stress and increased aggression in males, but not females. Mimicking the changes in transthyretin expression induced by stress also increases aggressive behavior in adult males, suggesting a causal connection between changes in thyroid hormone signaling and the behavioral changes induced by stress around puberty.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.77968.sa0Introduction
Escalated aggressive behavior with pathological signatures poses immense risk for violent and antisocial behavior and is a major challenge to human welfare (Miczek et al., 2007). Aggression is a behavioral adaptation to threat and competition, but when it becomes excessive, uncontrollable and out of contextd it is considered as maladaptive and pathological (Neves and Tudela, 2015; Waltes et al., 2016).
Animal aggression is considered escalated and pathological if it displays short attack latency, prolonged attack duration, attacks targeted on inappropriate partners, and body parts prone to serious injury; attacks not signaled by threats; or ignorance of signals of opponents (Bacq et al., 2020). In general, animal models of escalated aggression can largely explain abnormal aggressive behavior in humans (Miczek et al., 2015). Therefore, it is extremely important to understand the biological factors contributing to shift of normal adaptive aggression to escalated and pathological form.
Mounting epidemiological evidences link early life stressful experiences with deteriorating mental health (Nelson and Trainor, 2007; Duke et al., 2010; Haller et al., 2014; Hunt et al., 2019; Mitchell and Aamodt, 2005). In particular, stress exposures around puberty including childhood and adolescence including fear, maltreatment, physical and sexual abuse confers susceptibility to aggressive behavioral disorders (Veenema, 2009; Tzanoulinou and Sandi, 2017; Bounoua et al., 2020). Although, early life adversities are considered as one of the potential triggers for abnormal aggression, biological insights are obscure. More importantly, majority of research in the field of aggressive biology have focused on the adaptive form without really considering the escalated and pathological forms (de Boer, 2018). Márquez et al., 2013 developed a novel animal model which showed the effect of peripubertal fearful exposures on male pathological aggression at adulthood in Wistar Han rats. They primarily focused on neural circuits of aggression and on a single gene Maoa in isolation.
Considering aggressive behavior as a multidimensional trait, we rationalized that unbiased genome wide investigation would decipher key molecular pathways that can be exploited further as prediction and intervention targets. We modeled peripubertal stress (PPS) induced escalated aggression in laboratory bred Balb/c mice and screened the male cohort showing extremes of behavioral changes. Female mice showed resilience towards PPS induced escalated aggressive behavior as also reported previously (Konar et al., 2019).
Next, we performed a sex-specific transcriptome analysis in vulnerable brain regions of hypothalamus (Hypo) and prefrontal cortex (PFC). Hypothalamus is a key brain region for expression of aggressive behavior and neural circuit-specific manipulation experiments revealed that ventromedial hypothalamus is the crucial for inter-male aggression (Lin et al., 2011; Falkner et al., 2016). While Hypo is considered as the trigger center for aggression, PFC plays opposite regulatory role being involved in inhibition of threat provoked aggressive behavior. More importantly, direct neuronal projections from PFC to Hypo have been suggested to control both type and amplitude of aggressive behavior (Choy et al., 2018; Biro et al., 2018). Therefore, we primarily focused on hypothalamic molecular culprits of escalated aggression and also included PFC in our study to understand inter-brain regional molecular regulation if any.
We prioritized Ttr gene given its (i) top rank in Hypo transcriptome analysis and unique sex specific diametrically opposite expression pattern in Hypo and PFC and (iii) long-term gene expression changes from early peripubertal age till adulthood. Brain-region-specific changes in Ttr gene expression and promoter methylation and thyroid hormone (TH) availability, one of the key functions of TTR were evident in PPS-induced escalated aggressive male mice. Further, targeted gene manipulation revealed causal role for hypothalamic Ttr in development of escalated aggressive behavior. However, causal relationship of Ttr regulated hypothalamic TH availability and escalated aggression is still to be explored.
Results
Screening of escalated aggressive behavior
Adult animals exhibiting escalated aggressive behavior in response to PPS exposure were screened based on resident intruder (RI) behavioral scoring parameters. Behavioral scoring data are presented in Figure 1. Screening parameters were optimized based on earlier reports (Koolhaas et al., 2013). We observed that in adult control (Ctrl-RI; N=60) Balb/c mice, 95% (N=57) were non-aggressive (Nagg) while 5% (N=3) showed normal offensive aggression (Lagg) but not escalated. Amongst PPS exposed adult male mice (PPS-RI; N=60), 78.33% (N=47) showed escalated aggression with pathological signs characterized by prolonged fighting with short attack latency, attack on females and anesthetized intruder in all the sessions tested. Amongst these 47 mice, 32 (53.33%) showed extremes of behavioral changeswith greater than 80% observation time spent in attack, very short attack latency of less than one minute in all the sessions (Figure 1B and C and Figure 1—source data 1) and those which attacked both females and anaesthetized intruder. These were referred to as escalated aggressive ‘Eagg’ and rest as hyper-aggressive ‘Hagg’ (N=15; 25%). We selected ‘Eagg’ mice cohort for further molecular and cellular analyses. Some mice of the PPS-RI cohort were moderate-aggressive (Magg; N=8; 13.33%) showing signs of pathological form in some days of the RI session and 8.33% (N=5) showed normal offensive aggression across 7 days of 10-min screening sessions. As reported earlier (Falkner et al., 2016) females did not show escalated aggression.

Brain-region-specific transcriptional responses in peripubertal stress induced adult males showing escalated aggression.
(A) Experimental timeline of peripubertal stress (PPS) exposure, resident intruder (RI) behavioral paradigm, brain dissection and transcriptome analysis. (B) Phenotypic behavioral screening post RI scoring in control mice without PPS exposure (Ctrl-RI; N=60) and experimental mice with PPS exposure (PPS-RI; N=60) Histogram represents non-aggressive (Nagg; N=57) and less aggressive (Lagg; N=3) mice in the Ctrl-RI cohort. PPS-RI cohort comprises of escalated aggressive (Eagg; N=32), hyper-aggressive (Hagg; N=15), moderate-aggressive (Magg; N=8) and less-aggressive (Lagg; N=5) mice (C) Attack latency of Eagg, Hagg and Magg mice of PPS-RI cohort. (D) X-Y plot depicting the log 2 fold changes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in prefrontal cortex (PFC) in X-axis and hypothalamus (Hypo) in Y-axis and their overlap. (E) Heatmap of DEGs in Ctrl-RI (Control) vs PPS-RI escalated aggressive (SEagg) males Hypo and PFC and (F) KEGG gene enrichment analysis. RNA sequencing libraries were prepared from N=3 mice/biological replicates per group.
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Figure 1—source data 1
Data points for attack latency.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig1-data1-v2.xlsx
Transcriptome analyses identify brain region-specific gene signatures in PPS-induced adult males showing escalated aggression and resilient females
To discover unbiased molecular correlates of early life stressful experiences induced escalated aggression and its sex differences we used RNA-sequencing to measure all polyA-containing transcripts in Hypo and PFC of adult control and PPS exposed male and female mice. Now we refer to the adult PPS exposed escalated aggressive male mice group as “SEagg” and adult PPS exposed non-aggressive female mice group as “SNagg”. Experiment was performed in 3 individual mice considered as biological replicates for all the samples and tissues were collected 24 h after last RI session. Replicate concordance value of one female biological replicate was less than 0.8 and therefore we excluded the sample in further analyses. Heatmaps of differentially expressed genes (DEG)s were constructed from the global transcriptome analysis. A Supplementary file 1 containing list of DEGs in males and females has been included. In Hypo, 49 genes were differentially expressed amongst which 28 were down-regulated, 20 were up-regulated and 1 was expressed in SEagg males but not in control males. PFC of SEagg males showed 87 DEGs amongst which 57 were downregulated, 28 were upregulated and 2 were only expressed in SEagg males but not control males (Figure 1D and E and, Figure 1—figure supplement 1). Cell type analysis (https://www.brainrnaseq.org/) of top ranking DEGs showed highest number of neuron and microglia enriched genes followed by equivalent number of endothelial, astrocytes and oligodendrocytes enriched genes in Hypo. PFC showed highest number of neuron and astrocytes enriched genes followed by equivalent number of microglia, endothelial and oligodendrocytes enriched genes (Figure 1—figure supplements 2–8).
Resilient non aggressive females (SNagg) showed more DEGs (Hypo-363; PFC-2475) than SEagg males when compared to their respective control samples (Figure 2A and B and Figure 2—figure supplement 1) Comparative analysis of male vs female showed both overlapping and discrete gene signatures. In Hypo, 16 DEGs overlapped between male and female, 15 showing expression changes in opposite direction, 1 in similar direction and 33 genes were exclusive to SEagg males (Figure 2D). In PFC, 44 DEGs overlapped between male and female, 29 genes showing expression changes in opposite direction and 15 genes in similar direction.

Brain-region-specific transcriptional responses in peripubertal stress induced adult resilient females.
(A) X-Y plot depicting the log 2 fold changes of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in prefrontal cortex (PFC) in X-axis and hypothalamus (Hypo) in Y-axis and their overlap. (B) Heatmap of DEGs in Ctrl-RI (Control) vs PPS-RI Non aggressive (SNAgg) females in Hypo and PFC and (C) KEGG analysis and (D) Venn diagram of Hypo and PFC specific overlapping DEGs between SEagg males and SNAgg females. RNA sequencing analyses were performed on N=2 mice/biological replicates per group.
In order to identify the gene signatures causal for PPS-induced male escalated aggression, we prioritized genes of two categories including (i) male exclusive DEGs in Hypo and PFC (ii) DEGs that showed opposite pattern in both sexes. Amongst these DEGs, we selected top ranking 10 genes from each category and finally 20 DEGs got validated by RT-PCR.
Ttr, encoding for thyroid hormone (TH) transporter protein was the topmost ranking gene in Hypo of our transcriptome data in males (Figure 2—figure supplement 2) that was validated by RT-PCR. Further, it was the only gene showing unique brain region and sex specific diametrically opposite pattern (Figure 2—figure supplement 2). Gene ontology enrichment analysis using KEGG tool combined with literature mining also showed TH signaling as one of the top ranking pathways (Figure 1F). TH signaling genes Nrgn and Trh was amongst the top ranking genes in Hypo (Figure 2—figure supplement 2).
Amongst rest of the 17 genes (Figure 2—figure supplements 3 and 4), 11 were male exclusive but altered either in Hypo (downregulated- Nrn1, Neurod2 and Zbtb16; up-regulated- Cartpt, Gm17508 and Oxt) or PFC (downregulated- Gas5; upregulated- Cyr61, Dcn and Man1c1) or in both brain regions in similar direction (downregulated-Ddx39b) but remained unaffected in females (data not shown). 6 genes overlapped with female in opposite direction but were altered either in Hypo (dowregulated-Rtn4r and Pvalb) or PFC (upregulated-Sox2ot, Gm12840) or in similar direction in both Hypo and PFC (upregulated-Apold1 and Btg2). We, therefore, focused on Ttr and carried out functional analysis pertaining to TH signaling in our experimental regime.
PPS incites persistent changes in Ttr gene expression in both sexes but in opposite manner
RT-PCR validation of the transcriptome data revealed unique brain region and sex biased diametrically opposite expression pattern of the only gene Transthyretin (Ttr) in adult mice cohort. Ttr was also amongst the topmost DEGs based on fold change and p value. In PPS-induced SEagg males, Ttr mRNA showed a decrease of 0.23-fold in Hypo and a robust increase of 8-fold in PFC relative to control (Ctrl) males. On the contrary, adult females that did not show aggressive behavior (SNAgg), Ttr mRNA expression pattern was opposite to males, being increased in Hypo (13.6-fold) and drastically reduced (0.55-fold) in PFC relative to control counterparts (Figure 3B). Three-way ANOVA showed a significant effect for brain region x sex x treatment interaction {F (1, 88)=685.0, p<0.0001}, significant main effect for treatment {F (1, 88)=98.53, p<0.0001}, sex {F (1, 88)=640.3, p<0.0001} and for brain region (F (1, 88)=1913, p<0.0001); Two-way ANOVA also revealed significant main effect of treatment {F (1, 44)=12.89, p=0.0002 in males; F (1, 44)=99.36, p<0.0001 in females} and brain region {F (1, 44)=891.7 in males; F (1, 44)=1026, p<0.0001 in females} in both sexes. In order to understand whether this gene expression changes was persistent from peripubertal age, we analyzed Ttr mRNA in brain regions post 24 hr after PPS exposure. The direction of Ttr mRNA changes was similar at peripuberty in both the brain regions and sexes although there were minor differences in the extent. PPS caused drastic reduction in Hypo (0.40-fold) and increase in PFC of Ttr mRNA expression (22.3-fold) of males. In females, the changes were reverse being upregulated (13.12-fold) in Hypo and reduced (0.51-fold) in PFC of PPS mice relative to unstressed (NS) controls (Figure 3C). Three-way ANOVA showed a significant effect for brain region x sex x treatment interaction {F (1, 88)=669.5, p<0.0001}, significant main effect for treatment {F (1, 88)=196.1, p<0.0001}, sex {F (1, 88)=570.1, p<0.0001} and for brain region {(F (1, 88)=1215, p<0.0001); Two-way ANOVA also revealed significant main effect of treatment {F (1, 44)=79.45, p<0.0001in males; F (1, 44)=149.4, p<0.0001 in females} and brain region {F (1, 44)=184.6, p<0.0001in males; F (1, 44)=1967, p<0.0001 in females} in both sexes. Details of ANOVA analyses have been given in Tables 1 and 2 and Supplementary file 2.

Peripubertal stress induced long term changes in TTR expression in brain-region and sex-specific diametrically opposed pattern.
(A) Experimental timeline for TTR expression analysis. Ttr mRNA expression profile in (B) Hypo and PFC of peripubertal stress exposed (PPS) adult male (SEagg) and female (SNAgg) mice with control (Ctrl), 24 hr after RI session and (C) Hypo and PFC of peripubertal male and female mice 24 hr after stress exposure (PPS) with control [no stress exposure (NS)] counterparts. (N=12 mice/biological replicates per group). Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analyzed by three-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc test (**** p<0.0001). (D) Representative immunoblot of TTR protein levels with N=3 mice/biological replicates per group. Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analyzed by two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc test (**** p<0.0001, ***p=0.0001, *p<0.05). Immunofluorescence analysis (N=3 mice/ biological replicates per group) with left panels showing TTR immunoreactive cells (arrowheads) in Hypo (E) and PFC (G) and right panel showing TTR immunoreactivity in Hypo (F) and PFC (H) of Ctrl and SEagg mice.
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Figure 3—source data 1
Uncropped immunoblot of TTR and GAPDH.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig3-data1-v2.zip
ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3B.
A. Three-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3B. | |||||
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ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Brain Region | 401 | 1 | 401 | F (1, 88)=1913 | p<0.0001 |
Sex | 134.2 | 1 | 134.2 | F (1, 88)=640.3 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 20.65 | 1 | 20.65 | F (1, 88)=98.53 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region x Sex | 5.531 | 1 | 5.531 | F (1, 88)=26.39 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region x Treatment | 0.2857 | 1 | 0.2857 | F (1, 88)=1.363 | p=0.2462 |
Sex x Treatment | 5.853 | 1 | 5.853 | F (1, 88)=27.93 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region x Sex x Treatment | 143.6 | 1 | 143.6 | F (1, 88)=685.0 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 18.44 | 88 | 0.2096 | ||
B. Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3B in males. | |||||
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Interaction | 78.33 | 1 | 78.33 | F (1, 44)=447.3 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 156.2 | 1 | 156.2 | F (1, 44)=891.7 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 2.258 | 1 | 2.258 | F (1, 44)=12.89 | p=0.0008 |
Residual | 7.706 | 44 | 0.1751 | ||
C. Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3B in females. | |||||
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Interaction | 65.52 | 1 | 65.52 | F (1, 44)=268.5 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 250.3 | 1 | 250.3 | F (1, 44)=1,026 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 24.24 | 1 | 24.24 | F (1, 44)=99.36 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 10.74 | 44 | 0.244 |
ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3C.
A. Three-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3C. | |||||
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ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Brain Region | 305.7 | 1 | 305.7 | F (1, 88)=1,215 | p<0.0001 |
Sex | 143.5 | 1 | 143.5 | F (1, 88)=570.1 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 49.35 | 1 | 49.35 | F (1, 88)=196.1 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region x Sex | 34.57 | 1 | 34.57 | F (1, 88)=137.4 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region x Treatment | 1.736 | 1 | 1.736 | F (1, 88)=6.898 | p=0.0102 |
Sex x Treatment | 0.3444 | 1 | 0.3444 | F (1, 88)=1.368 | p=0.2452 |
Brain Region x Sex x Treatment | 168.5 | 1 | 168.5 | F (1, 88)=669.5 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 22.15 | 88 | 0.2517 | ||
B. Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3C in males. | |||||
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Interaction | 102.2 | 1 | 102.2 | F (1, 44)=280.4 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 67.33 | 1 | 67.33 | F (1, 44)=184.6 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 28.97 | 1 | 28.97 | F (1, 44)=79.45 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 16.04 | 44 | 0.3646 | ||
C. Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3C in females. | |||||
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
Interaction | 68.02 | 1 | 68.02 | F (1, 44)=490.3 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 272.9 | 1 | 272.9 | F (1, 44)=1967 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 20.72 | 1 | 20.72 | F (1, 44)=149.4 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 6.104 | 44 | 0.1387 |
TTR protein alters in spatial and cell-type-specific manner
Immunoblot analysis of TTR protein levels corresponded to its transcript pattern in both the sexes. TTR protein was reduced to 0.37-fold in Hypo and upregulated by 1.36-fold in PFC in PPS-induced SEagg males, relative to control (Ctrl) animals (Figure 3D). Uncropped immunoblots of TTR has been included (Figure 3—source data 1). Two-way ANOVA revealed significant main effect of treatment {F (1, 8)=10.17, p=0.0128} and brain region {F (1, 8)=60.87, p<0.0001} as well as interaction {F (1, 8)=90.32, p<0.0001} Details of ANOVA analyses have been given in Table 3 and Supplementary file 2.
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 3D.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 84.19 | 1 | 84.19 | F (1, 8)=90.32 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 56.74 | 1 | 56.74 | F (1, 8)=60.87 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 9.481 | 1 | 9.481 | F (1, 8)=10.17 | p=0.0128 |
Residual | 7.457 | 8 | 0.9322 |
Until now we were considering the changes in bulk tissue, therefore, we performed immunofluorescence to elucidate spatial and cell type specificity if any. TTR immunoreactive cells were observed in dorsomedial hypothalamus, ventromedial hypothalamus and arcuate nucleus. Therefore, in later stereotaxy experiments, coordinates were chosen (Materials and methods) to cover all the above mentioned areas. Dorsomedial hypothalamus showed more TTR immunoreactive cells than the other sub-regions. In SEagg males, TTR protein fluorescence intensity was significantly reduced in Hypo (Figure 3E) and increased in PFC as compared to Ctrl males. (Figure 3F). No primary TTR antibody negative control was used to determine specificity of the immunofluorescence experiments (Figure 3—figure supplement 1). Further studies on co-localization with specific molecular markers are required to identify the cell type of TTR protein in Hypo and PFC.
Next we investigated TTR protein fluorescence intensity in choroid plexus region, considered to be the main site of TTR protein synthesis in brain, though it did not show any difference between Ctrl and SEagg group. (Figure 3—figure supplement 1).
Long term perturbation of thyroid hormone availability and target gene expression in brain
To explore the functional consequences of perturbed TTR expression, we measured peripheral as well as brain-region-specific T4 and T3 content in both sexes. Circulating TH including total T4 and T3 in serum (Figure 4B-E and Figure 4—source data 1) was neither altered in adulthood nor at peripubertal age in both sexes. Interestingly, brain TH content was remarkably altered corresponding to Ttr gene expression right from peripuberty till adulthood. In adult SEagg males, total T4 and T3 was reduced in Hypo but increased in PFC as compared to control samples (Ctrl) (Figure 4F and G and Figure 4—source data 1). Two way ANOVA analyses revealed significant interaction between brain region and treatment {F (1, 16)=408.3, p<0.0001} as well as main effect of treatment {F (1, 16)=6.711, p=0.0197} though significant main effect of brain region was not observed for changes in T4 content. Ctrl Hypo vs SEagg Hypo and Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC groups showed significant differences (p<0.0001) in Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test. Two-way ANOVA analyses of T3 content in brain revealed significant main effect of brain region {F (1, 16)=426.7, p<0.0001}, treatment {F (1, 16)=100.2, p<0.0001} and interaction {F (1, 16)=200.5, p<0.0001}. Ctrl Hypo vs SEagg Hypo PFC groups showed significant differences (p<0.0001) while Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC was not significant in Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test. Of note, statistical analysis by unpaired Student’s t-test showed significant difference (p<0.001) in Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC comparison.

Peripubertal stress-induced long-term perturbation of thyroid hormone availability in the brain of escalated aggressive males with concomitant changes in target gene expression.
(A) Experimental timeline. T4 (B) and T3 (C) level in serum of peripubertal stress exposed (SEagg) and control (Ctrl) adult males 24 hr after RI session. T4 (D) and T3 (E) level in serum of peripubertal males 24 hr after stress exposure (PPS) with control [no stress exposure (NS)] counterparts. Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analyzed by unpaired Student’s t-test ns (p> 0.05). T4 (F) and T3 (G) level in Hypo and PFC of peripubertal stress exposed (SEagg) and control (Ctrl) adult males 24 hr after RI session. T4 (H) and T3 (I) level in Hypo and PFC of peripubertal males 24 hr after stress exposure (PPS) with control [no stress exposure (NS)] counterparts. All the above ELISA assays ‘B-I’ were performed in N=5 mice/biological replicates per group. Trh mRNA (J) and Nrgn mRNA (K) expression profile in Hypo and PFC of Ctrl and SEagg males (N=9 mice/biological replicates per group). NRGN protein expression (L) profile in Hypo and PFC of Ctrl and SEagg males and representative immunoblot with N=3 mice/biological replicates per group. Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analyzed by two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni’s post hoc test (**** p<0.0001, **p<0.01 and ns p>0.05).
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Figure 4—source data 1
Data points for T4 and T3 ELISA.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig4-data1-v2.xlsx
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Figure 4—source data 2
Uncropped immunoblot of NRGN and GAPDH protein.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig4-data2-v2.zip
These changes of hypothalamic and PFC T4 and T3 content was persistent from early peripubertal (NS vs PPS males) age (Figure 4H and I and Figure 4—source data 1). Two way ANOVA analyses of T4 content revealed significant interaction between brain region and treatment {F (1, 16)=1209, p<0.0001} as well as main effect of treatment {F (1, 16)=371.9, p<0.0001} and brain region {F (1, 16)=4097, p<0.0001}. NS Hypo vs PPS Hypo and NS PFC vs PPS PFC groups showed significant differences (p<0.0001) in Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test.
Two-way ANOVA analyses of T3 content also revealed significant main effect of brain region {F (1, 16)=84.87, p<0.0001}, treatment {F (1, 16)=14.99, p=0.0014} and interaction {F (1, 16)=189.1, p<0.0001}. NS Hypo vs PPS Hypo and NS PFC vs PPS PFC showed significant differences (p<0.0001) in Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test.
In females, direction of changes for both T4 and T3 levels were reverse being increased in Hypo and reduced in PFC (Figure 4—figure supplement 1 and Figure 4—source data 1) but remained unaffected in serum.
TH mediates its action by regulating expression of target genes. Therefore, we explored TH responsive genes that was differentially expressed in our transcriptome data (Trh, Nrgn). Hypothalamic reduction in T4 and T3 content and consequent impaired TH signaling was clearly evident from expression of downstream target genes. TH responsive Nrgn mRNA expression showed significant downregulation of 0.5-fold in SEagg males compared to Ctrl males (Figure 4K) in Hypo similar to Ttr mRNA. Two-way ANOVA analyses showed significant main effect of brain region {F (1, 32)=51.51, p<0.0001}, treatment {F (1, 32)=33.97, p<0.0001} as well as interaction {F (1, 32)=74.27, p<0.0001}. Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test showed significant differences in Ctrl Hypo vs SEagg Hypo (p<0.0001) whereas Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC was not significant (p=0.3434). NRGN protein level was also reduced to 0.6-fold in hypothalamus of Eagg males (Figure 4L). Two-way ANOVA analyses showed significant main effect of brain region {F (1, 8)=80.63, p<0.0001}, treatment {F (1, 8)=0.02817, p=0.8709} as well as interaction {F (1, 8)=14.71, p=0.0050}. However, Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test did not show significant differences in Ctrl Hypo vs SEagg Hypo (p=0.1916) and Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC (p=0.1327) group. Uncropped images of NRGN western blot has been included (Figure 4—source data 2). Another, TH regulated gene, Trh showed a robust increase of 5-fold in Hypo of SEagg males while remained unaltered in PFC (Figure 4J).Two-way ANOVA analyses showed significant main effect of brain region {F (1, 32)=250.7, p<0.0001}, treatment {F (1, 32)=399.6, p<0.0001} as well as interaction {F (1, 32)=282.9, p<0.0001}. Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test showed significant differences in Ctrl Hypo vs SEagg Hypo (p<0.0001), whereas Ctrl PFC vs SEagg PFC was not significant (p=0.1927). Both Nrgn and Trh mRNA levels showed similar expression profile in early life peripubertal age (Figure 4—figure supplement 1) indicating a long term change in gene expression. Details of ANOVA analyses have been given in Tables 4–10 and Supplementary file 2.
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4F.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 0.7605 | 1 | 0.7605 | F (1, 16)=408.3 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 0.002 | 1 | 0.002 | F (1, 16)=1.074 | p=0.3155 |
Treatment | 0.0125 | 1 | 0.0125 | F (1, 16)=6.711 | p=0.0197 |
Residual | 0.0298 | 16 | 0.001863 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4G.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 0.001748 | 1 | 0.001748 | F (1, 16)=200.5 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 0.003721 | 1 | 0.003721 | F (1, 16)=426.7 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 0.0008738 | 1 | 0.000874 | F (1, 16)=100.2 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 0.0001395 | 16 | 8.72E-06 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4H.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 2.003 | 1 | 2.003 | F (1, 16)=1,209 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 6.786 | 1 | 6.786 | F (1, 16)=4,097 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 0.616 | 1 | 0.616 | F (1, 16)=371.9 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 0.0265 | 16 | 0.001657 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4I.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 0.000133 | 1 | 0.000133 | F (1, 16)=189.1 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 5.95E-05 | 1 | 5.95E-05 | F (1, 16)=84.87 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 1.05E-05 | 1 | 1.05E-05 | F (1, 16)=14.99 | p=0.0014 |
Residual | 1.12E-05 | 16 | 7.01E-07 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4J.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Interaction | 10.14 | 1 | 10.14 | F (1, 32)=282.9 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 8.99 | 1 | 8.99 | F (1, 32)=250.7 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 14.33 | 1 | 14.33 | F (1, 32)=399.6 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 1.147 | 32 | 0.03586 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4K.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Interaction | 5.722 | 1 | 5.722 | F (1, 32)=74.27 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 3.969 | 1 | 3.969 | F (1, 32)=51.51 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 2.617 | 1 | 2.617 | F (1, 32)=33.97 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 2.465 | 32 | 0.07705 |
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 4L.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | P value |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Interaction | 85.6 | 1 | 85.6 | F (1, 8)=14.71 | P=0.0050 |
Brain Region | 469.1 | 1 | 469.1 | F (1, 8)=80.63 | P<0.0001 |
Treatment | 0.1639 | 1 | 0.1639 | F (1, 8)=0.02817 | P=0.8709 |
Residual | 46.55 | 8 | 5.818 |
Hypothalamus targeted Ttr knockdown reduced TH levels and induced escalated aggressive behavior in males without peripubertal stress exposure
We checked the direct causal role of TTR by blocking its gene expression through jet-PEI mediated Ttr esiRNA injection in hypothalamus. Hypothalamus targeted Ttr knockdown to 0.2-fold (80% reduction) in adult unstressed males mirrored the escalated aggression induced by PPS (Video 1- Scrambled injected mouse and Video 2 Ttr siRNA injected mouse). Escalated aggression in these Ttr esiRNA injected male mice was prominent as they showed very short average attack latency of ~15 seconds and spent 60.5% of total behavioral RI session in clinch attack while none of the scrambled control animals showed signs of attack (Figure 5B and Figure 5—source data 1). Such behavioral profile was similar to the extent of behavioral changes observed in PPS exposed SEagg male cohort as shown in Figure 1.

Ttr knockdown in hypothalamus resulting in escalated aggression and reduced thyroid hormone levels.
(A) Experimental strategy of stereotaxic surgeries followed by behavioral and molecular experiments (B) Comparative analysis of behavioural profile during RI session between hypothalamus injected Ttr esiRNA (N=16 mice/biological replicates per group) and scrambled siRNA (Scr) males (N=15 mice/biological replicates per group).
(C) T3 content in hypothalamus (Hypo) of Ttr esiRNA (N=7 mice per group) and Scr males (N=6 mice/biological replicates per group). (D) Ttr mRNA, Nrgn mRNA, Hr mRNA and Trh mRNA expression analysis in Hypo of Ttr esiRNA and Scr males (N=9 mice/ biological replicates per group). Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analysed by unpaired Student’s t-test [*** (p< 0.001)] between Scr vs Ttr esiRNA group.
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Figure 5—source data 1
Data points for RI behavioral scoring.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig5-data1-v2.xlsx
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Figure 5—source data 2
Data points for T3 ELISA.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig5-data2-v2.xlsx
Video showing resident intruder behavioural session in which resident mouse (legs marked) is scrambled siRNA injected in hypothalamus and intruder is a control mouse of lesser body weight.
Scrambled injected mouse did not show any sign of offensive aggression and clinch attack.
Video showing resident intruder behavioural session in which resident mouse (body marked) is Ttr siRNA injected in hypothalamus and intruder is a control mouse of lesser body weight.
Ttr siRNA injected mouse showed escalated aggression spending maximum time in clinch attack and biting during the entire behavioural session.
T3 content in hypothalamus was decreased from 0.07 ng/mg tissue wt in scramble treated group to 0.03 ng/mg tissue wt in Ttr esiRNA treated group (Figure 5C and Figure 5—source data 2). TH-responsive Trh mRNA was also markedly increased by 6.5-fold and Nrgn mRNA got reduced to 0.36-fold upon Ttr gene silencing. Here, we included another well-established TH responsive gene hairless (Hr) that showed maximal downregulation to 0.2-fold upon Ttr gene silencing in hypothalamus (Figure 5D). Chemically induced increase in T4 levels by injecting levothyroxine in PFC did not show any significant behavioral changes (Figure 5—figure supplement 1).
F1 males exhibited escalated aggression, altered Ttr gene expression and TH levels in hypothalamus
We investigated whether PPS-triggered aggression of mouse strain Balb/c is evident in next generation. Adult SEagg males were mated with adult non-stressed females to generate the F1 progenies. F1 male and female progenies were examined at their adulthood. F1 male progenies of SEagg-F0 males showed similar escalated aggressive behavior that characterized the parental generation including short attack latency, attack towards anesthetized and female intruder and now referred to as Eagg-F1. These Eagg-F1 male progenies spent 45% of RI observation time in clinch attack with extremely short attack latency of 11 s while males from control F0 did not exhibit attack (Figure 6B and C and Figure 6—source data 1). However, female siblings of SEagg-F0 males did not display any prominent sign of aggression.

F1 male progenies showed escalated aggression with concomitant changes in Ttr gene expression and thyroid hormone signaling.
(A) Breeding pairs and experimental timeline. (B) Comparative analysis of behavioral profile during RI session between F1 males originating from control males crossed with control females (CF1) and F1 males originating from peripubertal stress exposed SEagg-F0 males crossed with control females (Eagg-F1) males (N=12 mice/biological replicates per group). (C) Attack latency comparison between parent SEagg-F0 (N=6 mice) and Eagg-F1 males (N=12 mice). (D) T3 content in Hypo and PFC of CF1 and Eagg-F1 males (N=5 mice/biological replicates per group). (E) Ttr, Nrgn and Trh mRNA expression analysis in Hypo and PFC of CF1 and Eagg-F1 males (N=6 mice/biological replicates per group). Data are presented as mean (± SD) and analyzed by unpaired Student’s t-test {ns (p> 0.05),* (p< 0.05), ** (p< 0.01), and *** (P<0.001)} between CF1 and Eagg-F1 groups or SEagg-F0 vs EaggF1.
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Figure 6—source data 1
Data points for RI behavioral scoring and attack latency.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig6-data1-v2.xlsx
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Figure 6—source data 2
Data points for T3 ELISA.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig6-data2-v2.xlsx
Next, we checked whether molecular changes in parental generation (SEagg-F0 father) including impaired Ttr gene expression and TH levels in brain were also present in the Eagg-F1 males. Similar to SEagg-F0 father, Eagg-F1 males showed deficiency in hypothalamic T3 content while that of PFC was not altered (Figure 6D and Figure 6—source data 2). Ttr expression reduced to 0.35-fold in the Hypo of Eagg-F1 males without any significant change in the PFC. Nrgn (reduction to 0.35-fold) and Trh (upregulation by 4.3-fold) were also altered similarly in hypothalamus (Figure 6E).
Brain-region-specific DNA methylation changes in Ttr promoter in PPS induced escalated aggressive males
Next, we examined whether epigenetic regulation of Ttr could explain the sustained molecular and behavioral changes invoked by PPS exposure. To address this question, we analyzed DNA methylation state of Ttr proximal promoter in the Hypo and PFC of SEagg male mice. As anticipated, MedIP qPCR showed that PPS trigger changes in Ttr DNA methylation in Hypo and PFC in adulthood. Ttr promoter showed brain-region-specific differential methylation state in opposite direction to that of its expression pattern. 5-methylcytosine fold enrichment analyses showed increase in Hypo (9.79-fold) and reduction (0.28-fold) in PFC in SEagg males relative to control (Ctrl) (Figure 7 and Figure 7—source data 1). Two-way ANOVA revealed significant main effect of treatment {F (1, 20)=47.97, p<0.0001} and brain region {F (1, 20)=29.68, p<0.0001} as well as interaction between two {F (1, 20)=321.7, p<0.0001 Details of ANOVA analyses have been given in Table 11 and Supplementary file 2.

Ttr promoter methylation changes in PPS-induced escalated aggressive males.
Methylated DNA immunoprecipitation analysis showing 5-methylcytosine fold enrichment in Ttr promoter in Hypo and PFC of Control male mice (Ctrl) and PPS-induced male mice showing escalated aggression (SEagg) (N=6 mice/biological replicates per group). Data are presented as mean (± SD). Two way ANOVA revealed significant interaction between brain region and treatment (****p<0.0001). Bonferroni’s multiple comparisons test showed significant difference between Ctrl and SEagg group in both Hypo and PFC region (****p<0.0001).
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Figure 7—source data 1
Data points for Ttr promoter 5-methylcytosine fold enrichment.
- https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/77968/elife-77968-fig7-data1-v2.xlsx
Two-way ANOVA analysis of the results shown in Figure 7.
ANOVA table | SS | DF | MS | F (DFn, DFd) | p value |
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Interaction | 8469 | 1 | 8469 | F (1, 20)=321.7 | p<0.0001 |
Brain Region | 781.5 | 1 | 781.5 | F (1, 20)=29.68 | p<0.0001 |
Treatment | 1263 | 1 | 1263 | F (1, 20)=47.97 | p<0.0001 |
Residual | 526.6 | 20 | 26.33 |
Discussion
In the present study, we fill in the existent gap of knowledge about the molecular roots of escalated aggressive behavior. Based on unbiased transcriptome screening, we identify novel role of TTR in long-term programming of escalated aggression induced by PPS. Our findings also indicate the possible involvement of TTR dependent brain TH availability in such abnormal behavioral response. However, further studies are necessitated to identify the definite molecular mechanism.
TTR is a 55 kDa protein that is synthesized in choroid plexus epithelial cells of the brain (Alshehri et al., 2015) until recently it was identified in neurons (Li et al., 2011; Zawiślak et al., 2017) and astrocytes indicating wide expression of the protein in CNS. Interestingly, we observed TTR immunoreactivity in different cell types in Hypo and PFC. TTR expression in PFC was similar to brain endothelial cell marker proteins (Tang et al., 2017). Our cell type specificity analysis using publicly available databases also revealed highest expression Ttr mRNA in endothelial cells followed by neurons, microglia and astrocytes in mouse brain. Additional experiments mainly colocalization with specific markers are required to confirm the cell types.
We observed long term impact of PPS on Ttr expression in brain-region and sex-specific diametrically opposite manner. Such a unique pattern of the only top ranking gene from our transcriptome data intrigued us to explore the functional outcomes. TTR is involved in the uptake of T4 from blood to CSF and local distribution of TH in brain (Alshehri et al., 2015). TTR has also been assigned other functions including proteolysis of Neuropeptide Y (Nunes et al., 2006), neuroprotection and regeneration of damaged neurons (Sousa et al., 2004). We focused on circulating and brain TH levels based on multiple reasons. Our transcriptome data showed significant expression change in TH signaling genes primarily Trh and Nrgn in Hypo. Several other genes in our list (PFC-Rasd2, Fosl2, Nr4a3, Inf2, Arl4d, Dcn, Pcp4l1, Drd2, Syndig1l, Hspa1a, Spock3; Hypo- Oxt, Cdhr1, Col23a1, Dgkk, Dkk3, Cck, Ptpro) showed overlap with literature available on T3 responsive genes in primary cultured neurons (Gil-Ibáñez et al., 2014; Richard and Flamant, 2018). Also, TH action in developing brain have been considered as critical determinants of multiple neurological deficits (Préau et al., 2015).
In clinical settings, TH abnormalities are diagnosed by serum parameters. However, we show that alterations in Ttr gene expression paralleled perturbation in T4 and T3 content in brain tissues of Hypo and PFC without affecting the circulating levels of the hormone. Determining the effective concentration of T4 and T3 in brain tissues is difficult owing to multiple factors driving their synthesis, transport across blood-brain and blood-CSF barrier, intracellular distribution and activation/inactivation (Schroeder and Privalsky, 2014; Bárez-López and Guadaño-Ferraz, 2017). Therefore, future investigations on TH transporters, DIO2 and DIO3 enzymes are necessitated to determine the local TH availability in brain (Mayerl et al., 2014; Williams and Bassett, 2011).
Any change in brain TH state has a direct influence on TH responsive genes. TH deficiency during postnatal brain development causes irreversible neurological manifestations through target gene expression changes (Vallortigara et al., 2008). Nrgn is one such brain specific TH responsive gene that was also amongst the top ranking DEGs in our transcriptome data containing TRE elements in promoter and its transcription is dependent on TH in brain (Pak et al., 2000; Husson et al., 2004). Nrgn regulates synaptic plasticity by activating calmodulin kinase II (CaMKII) protein and spine density. We observed significant reduction in Nrgn transcript and NRGN protein levels in concordance with decrease in T4 and T3 levels in Hypo.
Until now we found a strong association between altered brain TTR expression and function with escalated aggressive behavior but causal relationship was yet to be established. Next, we showed that intra-hypothalamic Ttr gene knockdown evoked escalated aggression in unstressed males to a similar extent to that of PPS induced males. Ttr gene knockdown also led to decrease in Hypo T3 content and alteration in expression TH signaling genes, Nrgn and Trh. Ttr gene silencing also reduced hairless (Hr), a universal TH responsive gene that is studied to monitor the local TH status in brain (Herwig et al., 2014).
Escalated aggressive behavior, reduced Ttr mRNA expression and T3 content in Hypo was also evident in F1 male progenies of SEagg males. Previous studies suggest that TH changes in neonatal brain can elicit neuroendocrine abnormalities in their F1 progenies. Also, developmental exposure of thyroxine disrupting chemicals can affect gene expression and behavior in later generations (Morte et al., 2018). These data indicated that behavioral and molecular consequences are dependent on TTR. However, it is not clear whether the decrease of TTR expression causes the escalated aggression via the regulation of hypothalamic TH availability or the effect of altered TTR expression on the aggression and TH availability are independent.
Ttr promoter showed altered methylation pattern in Hypo and PFC of SEagg males. As DNA methylation is considered important for lasting influence of stressful experiences (Vukojevic et al., 2014; Gulmez Karaca et al., 2020), it might underlie long-term impact of PPS on Ttr expression and aggressive behavior. Further studies are required to determine the molecular pathways underlying involvement of TTR in aggressive behavior.
In conclusion, we delineate novel role of TTR in manifestation of early life stress induced escalated aggression. TTR signaling in brain can also serve as a valid molecular predictor as well as intervention target in excessive pathological aggression. Our findings have inherent limitations of investigations in animal models and therefore further studies are warranted in relevant human cohort to establish role of TTR in abnormal aggression and related psychopathologies. Our work also provides resource for investigating sexual dimorphism in behavioral disorders and deciphering susceptibility as well as protective pathways.
Materials and methods
Reagent type (species) or resource | Designation | Source or reference | Identifiers | Additional information |
---|---|---|---|---|
Antibody | anti-TTR (rabbit polyclonal) | Thermo Fisher Scientific | Cat# PA5-80196 | WB (1:1000) IF (1:300) |
Antibody | anti-Nrgn (goat polyclonal) | Abcam | Cat#ab99269 | WB (1:1000) |
Antibody | anti-GAPDH (mouse monoclonal) | Santa Cruz | Cat#: sc32233 | WB (1:5000) |
Antibody | anti-5-methyl cytosine (mouse monoclonal) | Epigentek | Cat#: A-1014–050 | MeDIP (1 µg per reaction) |
Chemical compound, drug | in vivo-jetPEI | Polyplus Transfection | Cat#: 201–10 G | Transfection reagent for in vivo delivery of nucleic acids |
Chemical compound, drug | 2,4,5-Trimethylthiazole | Sigma-Aldrich | Cat#:W332518 | |
Chemical compound, drug | L-Thyroxine | Sigma-Aldrich | Cat#:T2376-100MG | |
Commercial assay or kit | EliKine TM Thyroxine (T4) ELISA Kit | Abbkine | Cat#: KET007 | |
Commercial assay or kit | EliKineTM Triiodothyronine (T3) ELISA Kit | Abbkine | Cat#: KET006 | |
Sequence-based reagent | Ttr esiRNA (esiRNA targeting mouse Ttr) | Sigma-Aldrich | Cat#: EMU030721 |
Animals
All experimental procedures involving live animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics committee (IAEC) of CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IAEC Approval Number-IGIB/IAEC/3/15) that is registered under Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India (Registration No and Date- 9/1999/CPCSEA). Male and female offspring of Balb/c mice bred in the institutional animal house were used for the study. All animals were group housed with 3–4 mice per cage under SPF conditions. They were kept in individually ventilated cages (IVC) at 24 ± 2°C on a 12 hr light/dark cycle with ad libitum access to food and water. Animal handling and experiments were conducted in accordance with the institutional guidelines.
PPS stress procedure
Request a detailed protocolMale and female mice were exposed to unpredictable fear inducing stressors of fox odor {2,3,5-trimethyl-3-thiazoline (TMT) secreted from fox anal gland and component of fox urine and feces} and elevated platform during the peripuberty period of postnatal day (P) 28 to P42 as per the protocol published previously (Márquez et al., 2013; Konar et al., 2019). Post weaning at P21, equivalent number of mice from different litters were mixed and placed in control (no stress during peripuberty) and experimental (peripubertal stress-PPS) groups in different home cages (3–4 mice per cage) avoiding placing of siblings in the same home cage.
Briefly, P28 male and female offspring were exposed to an open-field for 10 min for acclimatization in a novel environment. Thereafter, one group of mice were exposed to 9 µl of fox odor (Sigma) soaked cloth kept in a filter top plastic cage and elevated platform (96 cm above ground) for 7 random days (P28, P29, P30, P34, P36, P40, and P42) across P28 to P42. Stressors were applied during the active phase of the mice, singly or in combination in variable schedule so that the animals do not learn and get suddenly stressed. The duration of stress session was 25 min following which mice were returned to their home cages. Control animals were handled on the days in which their counterparts were exposed to PPS.
Resident intruder (RI) paradigm
Request a detailed protocolRI test for aggression was performed in male and female ‘adult control’ mice who were not exposed to stress during peripuberty and ‘PPS adult’ mice who were peripubertally stressed based on the protocol reported earlier (Márquez et al., 2013). Animals were individually housed for 1 week prior to testing and RI test was performed in their active phase. Each of these mice referred to as “resident” was exposed to various category of unfamiliar intruders once a day for 10 min for 7 consecutive days. Each day the resident was introduced to a different intruder in the following manner: day 1-same sex and 10% less body weight; day 2-same sex and 10% more body weight; day 3 and day 5-anesthetized of same sex and similar body weight; day4 and day7-opposite sex and similar body weight; day 6-different strain of same sex and similar body weight.
The behavioral parameters including clinch attack, move towards, social exploration, ano-genital sniffing, rearing, lateral threat, upright posture, keep down, chase, non-social explore and rest or inactivity were quantified in terms of percentage (duration) of the total observation time. Attack latency or the time between introduction of the intruder and first clinch attack was also determined. The total duration of the clinch attack, offensive upright, keeping down and lateral threat were considered as the measure of total offensive behavior. Social exploration behavior included the sum of social explore, auto and social grooming and ano-genital sniffing. Phenotypic screening of animals was done based on conventional parameters as published in earlier reports (Koolhaas et al., 2013; Takahashi and Miczek, 2014) and described in details in result section of Figure 1. Briefly, animals showing excessive aggression with pathological signs of very short attack latency, prolonged attack duration, attack on female and anesthetized intruder in all the days of RI test was referred to as escalated aggressive. The order of RI testing for control and PPS exposed adult animals was random. Behavioral scoring was done by an observer blind to animal identity and assignment of groups.
Breeding scheme for F1offspring
Request a detailed protocolControl (without PPS exposure) and PPS exposed adult male mice showing escalated aggression was mated with control females (without PPS exposure). After mating, males were immediately removed from the cage so that they do not have any contact with their offspring and do not impact upon their rearing. F1 offspring originating from these pairings were housed in standard cages and subjected to RI test for aggression at their adulthood (P90).
RNA-sequencing
Request a detailed protocolRNA was isolated from hypothalamus and PFC of male and female mice using Trizol reagent. One µg RNA (by Qubit measurement) was taken per sample and RNA sequencing libraries were made using Illumina Truseq Ribo-Gold Total RNA stranded kit as per manufacturer’s protocol. The libraries made were quality checked using Qubit and Bioanalyzer. The sequencing was performed using Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform in 150cycles paired end format. The raw fastq files were used to check for quality control using FastQC program. Trimmomatic was used to perform trimming using the default paired end parameters in the software. After trimming, quality check was performed again using FastQC and all reads were found to be above phred score 22 with no adapter contamination or over-represented sequences. The fastq files were aligned to Mouse Genome (mm10) using Tophat2 and the bam files were used to calculate differential expression using Cuffdiff2. Due to the stranded nature of the data, fr-firststrand parameter was used during analysis. The FDR corrected pvalue (also called as q-value) was used to check significance of differentially expressed genes. R-studio with ggplot package was used to generate plots while some plots were generated using Prism software. Raw and processed RNA seq datasets including raw transcriptomic data on the transcript levels in each biological replicate of control and experimental samples were deposited in National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), accession number GSE199844. Replicates that passed the concordance test (R>0.8) were included for analysis of differentially expressed genes.
RT-PCR
Request a detailed protocolTotal RNA was isolated from hypothalamus and PFC of mice and 2 µg of RNA from each group was reverse transcribed to cDNA synthesis. RT-PCR was carried out using SYBR Green master mix for detection in Light cycler LC 480 (Roche). All primers used for qRT-PCR are given in Supplementary file 3. The endogenous control GAPDH was used to normalize quantification of the mRNA target.
Immunoblotting
Request a detailed protocolCytosolic protein fraction was isolated from mouse hypothalamus and PFC, resolved by 10% SDS PAGE and transferred on to PVDF membrane. The membrane was probed with antibodies and target proteins were detected using LiCor Odyssey imaging system. The primary antibodies {anti-TTR rabbit polyclonal, anti-Nrgn rabbit polyclonal; anti-GAPDH mouse monoclonal} and secondary antibodies {anti-rabbit IgG HRP (Cell Signaling Technology, 7074P2) and anti-mouse IgG HRP (Cell Signaling Technology, 7076P2)} were used at adequate dilutions.
Immunohistochemistry
Request a detailed protocolMice were anaesthetized with thiopentone (40 mg/kg) and perfused with cold 4% paraformaldehyde in PBS. Brains were removed, post-fixed, cryoprotected in PBS +15% sucrose for 2–3 hr followed by immersion in PBS +30% sucrose for 24 hr, and then sectioned coronally (7 μm) on a cryotome. Free-floating sections were permeabilized with blocking buffer (PBS +3% normal donkey serum, 0.3% Triton X-100) for 2 hours and then incubated with TTR primary antibody overnight at 4 °C. Slices were then washed 4×15 min with PBS, incubated with corresponding secondary antibodies for 2 hr, washed 4×15 min with PBS, mounted on microscope slides followed by counterstaining with DAPI and photomicrographs were captured by FLoid fluorescence microscope.
Thyroid hormone measurement
Request a detailed protocolMouse blood samples were collected from heart to test serum levels of total tetraiodothyroxine (T4) and total tri-iodothyroxine (T3). Thyroid hormone content in brain regions was determined by dissecting hypothalamus and PFC and individually homogenizing them in artificial cerebral spinal fluid and centrifuged at 14,000 rpm for 15 min at 4 °C. The resulting supernatant was collected and used for ELISA based determination of total T4 and T3 (EliKineTM Thyroxine (T4) ELISA Kit KET007 and EliKineTM Triiodothyronine (T3) ELISA Kit KET006).
Stereotaxic surgeries and gene manipulation
Request a detailed protocolMice were anesthetized with 40 mg/kg BW thiopentone i.p. and positioned on a robotic stereotaxic frame (Cat no. 51700, Stoelting Co., USA) with motorized stereo-drive (Cat no. 013.641, Neurostar, USA). As mentioned in earlier reports (Hu et al., 2005), the dorsomedial, ventromedial and arcuate nucleus of hypothalamus were targeted bilaterally by using the stereotaxic coordinates of 1.5 mm posterior to the bregma, 0.5 mm lateral to midline, and 5.8 mm below the surface of the skull. For PFC, the specific coordinates for injection relative to bregma was mediolateral ±0.35 mm, dorsoventral –2.1 mm, and rostrocaudal axes +2.2 mm. For brain targeted gene manipulation Ttr esiRNA (esiRNA targeting mouse Ttr - EMU030721, Sigma Aldrich)–jetPEI complex was infused into hypothalamus. Levothyroxine (LT4) was bilaterally administered into PFC. Injection was given using 10 µl Hamilton syringe (Cat no. 72–1823,32 G; 700 N glass) placed in arm-held Elite-11 mini pump (Harvard Apparatus, USA) at a rate of 100 nl/min and the system was left in place for an additional 1 min and then gently withdrawn. Mice were allowed to recover individually from anesthesia and thereafter returned to their home cages. Post-operative cares were taken using analgesics and anti-biotics including meloxicam (5 mg/kg of b/w, i.m., Intas Pharmaceuticals, India) and gentamycin (5 mg/kg bw, i.m., Neon Laboratories, India) for 2–3 days. Body temperature was maintained during and after surgery in homoeothermic monitoring system (Harvard Apparatus, USA) following previous protocol. RI test for aggression was performed followed by molecular experiments after an additional 24 hr.
Methylated DNA immunoprecipitation
Request a detailed protocolDNA methylation was analyzed at the promoter region of Ttr by methylated DNA immunoprecipitation (MeDIP) method as mentioned earlier (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008; Mohn et al., 2009). Briefly, 4 µg of sonicated DNA (DNA fragment size ranging from 300 to 1000 bp) isolated from hypothalamus and PFC of Ctrl and SEagg male mice was diluted in immunoprecipitation buffer and incubated with 2 µg 5-methyl cytosine antibody (A-1014; Epigentek) at 4 °C overnight. Mouse IgG Isotype control antibody (02–6502, Thermo Fisher Scientific) was used for mock IP. Next day, 50 µL of Protein A-dynabeads was added and incubated at 4 °C for 2 hr with rotation. Thereafter, it was centrifuged at 3500xg at 4 °C for 10 min and the supernatant was removed carefully. After washing the pellet, the immune complex was eluted, DNA was purified and dissolved in TE buffer. Using eluted DNA as template, Ttr proximal promoter –184 to –33 bp from TSS was amplified with specific primers (Supplementary file 3) generating a 151 bp product in MedIP-qPCR.
Statistical analyses
Request a detailed protocolAll statistical analyses were performed using Microsoft Excel or Prism 8 (GraphPad Software). Sample sizes, statistical methods and p values are mentioned in results and figure legends. In order to analyze RT-PCR data, the 2^-ΔΔCt value was used to calculate relative fold change in mRNA expression and plotted. For immunoblot analysis, the signal intensity (Integrated Density Value, IDV) of TTR and NRGN bands was measured by spot densitometry tool of AlphaEaseFC software (Alpha Innotech Corp, San Jose, CA, USA), normalized against the IDV of internal control GAPDH and plotted as relative density value. MeDIP data were plotted as fold enrichment normalized to IgG control. Data are presented as mean (± SD) and individual data points are depicted in figure panels, wherever possible. Three-way ANOVA with the factors of sex, brain region, and treatment and two-way ANOVA with the factors of treatment and brain region was used. Within sex or brain region effects were determined by two-way ANOVA. Bonferroni post hoc test was applied for multiple comparisons. Individual comparisons were also made using the unpaired Student’s t test. Significance level was set to <0.05.
Data availability
RNA sequencing data have been deposited in GEO under accession code GSE199844. All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in the manuscript and supplementary files. Source data files have been provided for Fig. 1C, Fig. 3D, Fig. 4B-4J, Fig. 4P, Fig.5B-5D, Fig.6B-6E, Fig.7 and Fig. 4-figure supplement 1.
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NCBI Gene Expression OmnibusID GSE199844. Early life stressful experiences escalate aggressive behavior in adulthood via changes in transthyretin expression and function.
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Decision letter
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Margaret M McCarthyReviewing Editor; University of Maryland School of Medicine, United States
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Catherine DulacSenior Editor; Harvard University, United States
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Petr N MenshanovReviewer; Novosibirsk State University, Russia
Our editorial process produces two outputs: (i) public reviews designed to be posted alongside the preprint for the benefit of readers; (ii) feedback on the manuscript for the authors, including requests for revisions, shown below. We also include an acceptance summary that explains what the editors found interesting or important about the work.
Decision letter after peer review:
Thank you for submitting your article "Early life trauma leads to escalated aggressive behavior and its inheritance by impairing thyroid hormone availability in brain" for consideration by eLife. Your article has been reviewed by 3 peer reviewers, one of whom is a member of our Board of Reviewing Editors, and the evaluation has been overseen by Catherine Dulac as the Senior Editor. The following individual involved in review of your submission has agreed to reveal their identity: Petr N Menshanov (Reviewer #2).
The reviewers have discussed their reviews with one another, and the Reviewing Editor has drafted this to help you prepare a revised submission.
Essential revisions:
1) The role of the decreased hypothalamic T3 availability in the development of aggression is not causally established. In the current form of the paper, it is not clear whether the decrease of TTR expression causes the aggression via the regulation of hypothalamic T3 availability or the effect of altered TTR expression on the aggression and T3 availability are independent. Therefore, the authors should either focus on the role of TTR or they should provide additional evidence that lack of hypothalamic T3 is the cause of the development of aggression.
2) The studies on epigenetic mediated inheritance of the aggression phenotype are not well supported and should be removed. The data on methylation of the TTR promoter are an important contribution and should remain but should not be considered as a diagnostic for aggressive behavior or the basis for trans-generational inheritance.
3) Statistical analyses should be redone with factorial analyses to make the proper comparisons between sexes, stress condition and brain region.
4) RNA-Seq data should include greater in depth analyses.
5) The images of immunohistochemistry staining are not of sufficient quality and should be replaced.
Reviewer #1 (Recommendations for the authors):
Deiodinase 3 (Dio3) plays critical role in the regulation of hypothalamic T3 availability, therefore, the D3 expression should also be determined along the other TH regulated genes.
According to my knowledge, there is no reliable antibody against dio2. This fact highly questions the validity of the dio2 ELISA data. The only accepted method for the determination of DIO2 protein level is the DIO2 enzyme assay (PMID: 24001133).
The quality of the images illustrating immunocytochemistry is very weak. Better images would be necessary. In addition, it should be described in more details where the TTR-immunoreactive cells were observed in the hypothalamus. In addition, colocalization study should be performed at least with neuronal, glial and endothelial markers to determine what kind of cells express TTR in the hypothalamus.
Reviewer #2 (Recommendations for the authors):
Suggestions for improvement
1.1. In the present form submitted to GEO database, the transcriptomic data on the levels of individual transcripts are reported in aggregate per each experimental group, with no possibility to estimate variance between individual biological replicates. Reporting raw transcriptomic data on the transcript levels in each biological replicate will be beneficial for the readers interested in reanalyses of the data.
It is indispensable to report key elements of the transcriptomic analysis in full. Please update the GEO data with a single file on all levels of individual transcripts in each individual biological replicate.
1.2. The personal experience of the reviewer evidences that old Cufflink-Cuffdiff Tuxedo bioinformatic pipeline for RNA-Seqs (done after Tophat or STAR aligners), if applied properly, is highly sensitive to individual mRNA levels with minor shares. Nevertheless, in the present form of the description of bioinformatics pipeline in the "Methods" section, with missed basic options applied by the authors for Tophat, Cufflink, Cuffdiff utilits, it is hard to estimate the validity of the transcriptomic analyses done by the authors. Please consider improving the description of the bioinformatics methods applied.
1.3. Technical figures like volcano plots are important to control the quality of RNA-Seq, but are too uninformative to demonstrate the results of the experiment. Please consider illustrating the differences between PFC and HPT changes in DEGs on a single figure panel by depicting the parallel changes in the transcript levels identified in PFC (for example, x-axis) and HPT (for example, y-axis). At the same time, it is possible to move the volcano plots to the supplementary figures.
1.4. Preliminary analysis done by the reviewer by applying tissue cell deconvolution methods evidenced in favour of possible specific trends in cell numbers in the limbic brain regions studied. In particular, it cannot be excluded that the juvenile stress episodes suppressed microglia numbers in both the PFC and the HPT.
Please consider providing the data on tissue cell composition in RNA-Seq individual samples with respect to the experimental groups.
(For details, see Sutton et al. 2022 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022.28655-4 or other).
Such an analysis might be illustrative that stress itself is necessary but not sufficient to induce changes in the aggressive behaviours in affected male mice demonstrated excessive violence.
1.5. Please consider additional analyse of the data on the individual transcripts levels reported in the RNA-Seq analysis in a way similar to 2-way or 3-way (when appropriate) factorial ANOVA, to identify possible additive and non-additive patterns of changes in the levels of transcripts.
1.6. It will be also interesting to know on cell specificity of DEGs identified in PFC. Please consider checking the prevalence of individual DEGs with the help of Allen brain transcriptomic atlas (cited in Yao et al.,2021) or another one.
The above mentioned atlas can be assessed by the following link (https://portal.brain-map.org/atlases-and-data/rnaseq)
1.7. Please consider redrawing all figure panels depicted as traditional bars with the (Median, IQR, SD) box plots with individual data dots depicted. In particular, it is possible to achieve this at ease with the JASP freeware (https://jasp-stats.org/)
1.8. It is arguable to use GAPDH as a reference for qPCR assay in the experiments with stress exposures, since GAPDH levels might be affected and even programmed by stress experienced by animals.
Please consider providing a rationale on the applying of GAPDH as an internal standard for mRNA levels instead of β-actin or other mRNAs conventional for stress studies.
1.9. For future studies.
In the absence of cross-fostering experimental schedule for F1 experiments, it is hard to delineate the origins of epigenetic changes identified in the F1 descendants, whether these changes were transmitted directly or indirectly, via mother's specific behaviours on the descendants.
Recommendations for improving the writing and presentation
2.1. The present description of animal procedures in the "Methods" section does not provide enough details on the environments, in which the experimental mice were grown up. Please provide all details on animal housing procedures that might be stressful (social isolation events, social crowding events, numbers of animals per cell etc)
2.2. The description of several methods must be improved to clarify details critical for data comprehension.
For example,
Please indicate the details of screening tests done with subjects (females and anesthetized intruder) that were attacked by mice with pathological aggressive behaviours.
The experimental schedules must be reported in a clear way also. In particular, a brief statement must be done on how the distinct populations of "adult control" and "PPS adult male" mice screened by the Authors were originated from. A similar clarification must be done for female mice groups also.
2.3. The initial two paragraphs in the "Introduction" section do not provide the linear story tale on violence, "escalated" violence and a difference of these two concepts of aggression. The logic of this section must be improved.
2.3a. In the introduction, it looks like that the authors consider an aggression trait as a behavioural continuum between "zero-level" aggression to appropriate violence, and then to "escalated" aggressive behaviour. This point of view is arguable since it cannot be excluded that aggression is a multidimensional trait. Please consider revising and clarifying.
2.3b. It is possible to criticize "escalated" aggressive behaviour as unproductive. However, please do not make generalized negative statements on the nature of general violence in the Introduction and in the Discussion. Such statements might blackmail protective types of aggression critical for survival in mammals and humans.
2.4. Please avoid to made generalized statements that "A can lead to B". Such statements with a strong modal verb "can" are highly misleading since the development of behavioural traits is not linear and depends on both genotype and environmental context often. Better to speak that "A might lead to B" under certain circumstances.
Several examples:
2.4a."Escalated aggressive behavior … can lead to antisocial and criminal activities" [P3-S1-LL1-2]. This is misleading for numerous animals and for specific types of aggressive behaviours in H. sapiens. Please consider revising.
2.4b. "…pathological aggression has emerged as a consequence of early life adversities…" [P3-S2.LL9-10]. This statement is misleading, as it blames unrightfully all children affected by harsh life. Please consider revising.
2.4c. "…we inferred that Ttr promoter methylation could serve as a predictor of … behavioral deficits." [P24-S1-LL14-15] – Better to talk about "possible behavioural deficits", not about "behavioural deficits".
The above-mentioned list of examples is not exhaustive.
Reviewer #3 (Recommendations for the authors):
1) Examination of some of the DEGs from the other pathways identified in the KEGG analysis would either strengthen the argument that changes are specific to the TH pathway or highlight that changes are more wide spread.
2) Some discussion of how a change in the amount of T3 and T4 could lead to aberrant aggression would enhance the manuscript.
3) Overall the sex difference, which is profound, is not given much attention. There are more DEGs identified in females subject to peripubertal stress than males, yet there is no change in aggressive behavior, so what does this tell us? Also, does testosterone play a role in the sex difference in both the transcriptome and the behavioral changes? If males were gonadectomized, would the same transcriptional profile be apparent and would the behavior also be there? Or would the two endpoints diverge, belying the noting that there is a casual connect between them.
4) The peri-pubertal stress was conducted on 7 random days from PN28 to PN42. The timing of puberty is different in males and females, being earlier in females. Where measures taken to determine the stage of puberty in each animal (i.e. vaginal opening, preputial separation)? Did the stress impact the timing of puberty?
5) The transgenerational assertions should either be dropped or the study carried out to the F2 generation.
6) How was the use of MeDIP specific to the promoter for Ttr?
7) What are the circulating androgen levels in the males from the various groups? Could the PP have altered the HPGA that then in turns alters behavior?
8) It does not seem appropriate to refer to "donut shaped cells".
9) Figure 4J – appears mislabeled, has Hypo twice and no PFC.
10) Figure 4L-P – why aren't the individual points plotted for the mRNA and protein.
11) Whenever both brain areas are considered the statistics should be 2-way ANOVA with brain region and treatment as factors?
12) The word "trauma" in the context used here connotes an emotional interpretation of stressful or fearful events. We do not know if the mice are experiencing trauma, instead we know they are being subject to fearful and stress-inducing experiences. It is suggested that the word trauma be removed throughout and replaced with more precise terminology.
[Editors' note: further revisions were suggested prior to acceptance, as described below.]
Thank you for resubmitting your work entitled "Pivotal role of TTR in early life stressful experiences induced escalated aggressive behavior" for further consideration by eLife. Your revised article has been evaluated by Catherine Dulac (Senior Editor) and a Reviewing Editor.
The manuscript has been improved but there are some remaining issues that need to be addressed, as outlined in detail below:
The following additional revisions are essential:
1) The conclusions on large sex differences between male and female hypothalamic transcriptomes are not supported by the data due to the problematic sample GSM5988437 (Female Hypo Experimental BiologicalReplicate1). This sample must be withdrawn from the analysis, and the male-female comparisons for hypothalamic transcriptomes must be re-estimated without this problematic sample. This will help to dismiss any spurious claims about the "augmented" male-female hypothalamic differences.
2) Data about the specificity of the TTR immunocytochemistry and D2 elisa would be absolutely necessary. The authors describe the changes of 2 TH transmitters and Dio2. Dio3 is at least an important regulator of TH availability in the brain as Dio2. So either data about Dio3 expression should be added or data about the expression of TH transporters and Dio2 should be removed.
3) Determination of the cell types expressing TTR should be very fast and easy with double-labeling immunocytochemistry and would increase the value of the paper, however, this is not absolutely necessary to support the conclusions of the paper.
Reviewer #1 (Recommendations for the authors):
The manuscript was highly improved, but there are some points that need further change.
The immunocytochemical images of Figure 3 were highly improved. On E, the TTR immunoreactivity seems to be neuronal, while the TTR seems to be present in perivascular localization suggesting endothelial or astrocytic expression. The cell type expressing TTR in the studied brain regions should be determined using double-labeling immunofluorescence.
The specificity of the TTR immunostaining should be proven.
It should be described which hypothalamic region is shown in the images.
The red immunofluorescent signal is visible inside the ventricle on F. This questions the specificity of the staining.
The length of the scale bars is hardly visible. In addition, while the magnification of the left and right panels are obviously different, the scale bars are the same on all images. This should be corrected.
As the balance of DIO2 and DIO3 determines the TH availability, in addition to the expression level of transporters and DIO2, the expression of DIO3 should be also presented.
As there is no specific DIO2 antibody, the validity of the DIO2 protein data is highly questionable. Therefore, data about the specificity of the assay should be provided.
Dio2 is negatively regulated by TH in most parts of the brain, but changes in TH level have no effect on Dio2 activity in the hypothalamus suggesting that the observed changes of Dio2 are not compensatory.
Reviewer #2 (Recommendations for the authors):
1. It is still unclear whether Tophat, Cufflinks, Cuffmerge, and Cuffdiff tools were applied with the default settings or specific settings.
Please indicate clearly the settings applied for Tophat, Cuffdiff, and other bioinformatic tools used, within the "RNA-sequencing" subsection of the "Materials and methods" section.
2. Individual data provided for RNA-seq evidenced that Cuffdiff2 "misbehaved" during bioinformatics analysis while estimating FPKM levels for some abundant transcripts and filtering biological noise. As a result, Cuffdiff2 nullifies FPKM levels for some abundant transcripts like mitochondrial mt-Nd6 non-uniformly, only in specific samples. This issue should not be considered as a large problem, as Cuffdiff2's misbehaviour in such situations is already known.
To deal with this issue, the authors must include in the "Discussion" section a short sentence on this possible limitation of the study arising when comparing levels of highly abundant transcripts caused by Cuffdiff2 due to normalizations enacted.
3. The sample GSM5988437 (Female Hypo Experimental BiologicalReplicate1) failed to pass the Replicate concordance test (R=0.59-0.63), while all other replicates demonstrated R>0.8. To understand the Replicate concordance test, please consult with the ENCODE guidelines on RNA-Seq (https://www.encodeproject.org/about/experiment-guidelines/).
Since all reads were found to be above phred score 22 with no adapter contamination or over-represented sequences P46-LL882.883. , the FPKM levels in the sample GSM5988437 (Female Hypo Experimental BiologicalReplicate1) were nullified somehow (by Cuffdiff2 or in another way) for a large number of transcripts with 1.to-10 FPKM levels, as compared to other samples.
This might result in a spurious identification of DEGs in the female hypothalami of exposed animals and in a spurious identification of sex differences between male and female hypothalamic DEGs (please see Supplementary File 1 with FPKMs, and the Figures 1D, 2A, and 2D).
To deal with these complications,
3a. The authors must repeat the concordance test for their FPKM estimates in the individual samples, providing the results of the concordance test in the supplement Table in accordance with the ENCODE guidelines.
3b. It is necessary to repeat a Cuffdiff analysis for hypothalamic RNA-seq samples without the affected replicate GSM5988437 (Female Hypo Experimental BiologicalReplicate1), to ensure unbiased data for the Figure 2A, Figure 2D, DEG lists and the "Transcriptome analyses identify brain region-specific gene signatures…" subsection.
3c. The subsection "Transcriptome analyses identify brain region-specific gene signatures…" must be improved after a Cuffdiff-mediated reanalysis of the RNA-Seq data.
4. ANOVA results gained by the authors are an important addon improving the text comprehensibility. Nevertheless, there is no need to incorporate ANOVA Tables into the manuscript text. Please move these Tables to Supplement.
5. Please identify units of measurements for X- and Y-axes on the subpanels of Figures1D and 2A.
[Editors' note: further revisions were suggested prior to acceptance, as described below.]
Thank you for resubmitting your work entitled "Pivotal role of TTR in early life stressful experiences induced escalated aggressive behavior" for further consideration by eLife. Your revised article has been evaluated by Catherine Dulac (Senior Editor) and a Reviewing Editor.
The manuscript has been improved but there are some remaining issues that need to be addressed, as outlined below:
Thank you for the additional revisions to your manuscript. Upon further examination, it appears that some of the wording continues to be imprecise and is at times inappropriate in over-interpreting the significance of the findings to human behavior. Some specific suggestions are provided below but it would be useful to revisit the entire manuscript with an eye towards assuring there are no hidden biases and that are statements are both factually and grammatically correct.
Specific Comments:
1) The change in the title now makes it both awkward and inaccessible to the general reader. One suggestion is: "Early life stressful experiences escalate adult mouse aggressive behavior via changes in transthyretin expression and function" or some variation thereof.
2) There are many examples of statements regarding violence and criminality that are inappropriate or incorrectly attribute to causality. For instance, the second sentence of the Abstract states "Early life stressful experiences triggers adulthood violence and criminality". This suggests that anyone that experiences early life stress will grow up to be a violent criminal. It is critically important not to make blanket statements that can be misinterpreted as sound science.
3) It is unclear how there can be an "escalated aggressive phenotype", a phenotype cannot be escalated, perhaps instead state "enhanced aggressive phenotype" or "resulted in escalated aggressive behavior".
4) Second sentence of the Introduction – "Such aberrant behavioral patterns are also manifested in patients of multiple psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (2, 3) necessitating the identification of predisposing factors and early intervention strategies." – this seems strongly stigmatizing of individuals with mental illness, the vast majority of whom are not violent. It also is not important to the current findings and I would recommend removing such references to mental illness entirely.
5) Introduction – "Brain region-specific long-term changes in Ttr gene expression and thyroid hormone (TH) availability was evident in PPS induced escalated aggressive male mice, circulating TH being unaltered". – should read "were evident".
6) Introduction – "….it is extremely important to understand the biological culprits underlying brutal shift of normal adaptive aggression to escalated and pathological form." – the words "culprits" and "brutal" are emotionally laden terms that are inappropriate when discussing research findings.
7) Introduction – "We selected the extreme phenotypes for better understanding of the behavior observed in human violent offenders and psychopathy" – it is important to limit the conclusions of your study to what you observed which was changes in mouse behavior. Given the enormous complexity and multifactorial nature of violence in humans, it behooves you to not try and make direct connections between your studies and humans in the absence of any evidence that similar mechanisms are at play in human violent offenders.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.77968.sa1Author response
Essential revisions:
1) The role of the decreased hypothalamic T3 availability in the development of aggression is not causally established. In the current form of the paper, it is not clear whether the decrease of TTR expression causes the aggression via the regulation of hypothalamic T3 availability or the effect of altered TTR expression on the aggression and T3 availability are independent. Therefore, the authors should either focus on the role of TTR or they should provide additional evidence that lack of hypothalamic T3 is the cause of the development of aggression.
As suggested, the focus of the paper has been shifted to the role of TTR in aggression and accordingly title has been modified to “Pivotal role of TTR in early life stressful experiences induced escalated aggressive behavior” in the revised version of the manuscript.
2) The studies on epigenetic mediated inheritance of the aggression phenotype are not well supported and should be removed. The data on methylation of the TTR promoter are an important contribution and should remain but should not be considered as a diagnostic for aggressive behavior or the basis for trans-generational inheritance.
As suggested, studies on epigenetic mediated inheritance of the aggression phenotype that is Ttr promoter methylation changes in F1 generation (Figure 7B) has been removed. Behavioural and other molecular studies (Ttr and thyroid hormone gene expression) in F1 generation has been kept as an important observation (Figure 6) without claiming anything on epigenetic inheritance. However, if the reviewers wish the behavioural and molecular studies in F1 generation also to be removed, we are open to do the modifications.
3) Statistical analyses should be redone with factorial analyses to make the proper comparisons between sexes, stress condition and brain region.
Two way ANOVA with stress condition and brain region as factors (Revised Figure 3D, Figure 4F-4P and Figure 7) and three way ANOVA with sex, stress condition and brain region as factors (Revised Figure 3B and Figure 3C) has been performed and described in the result and figure legend section of the revised manuscript. ANOVA summary tables (Table 1 to Table 15) have also been incorporated in the main manuscript and details of ANOVA analyses for all the above mentioned figures have been given in Supplementary File 2.
4) RNA-Seq data should include greater in depth analyses.
As suggested, RNA-Seq data has been analysed in depth, addressing the following points which are also incorporated in revised manuscript.
GEO data has been updated with FPKM values of individual transcripts in individual biological replicate of control and experimental groups. Private token for access of reviewers has been provided.
Single figure panel depicting parallel changes in transcripts in PFC and Hypo has been included (Figure 1D and 2A)
Cell type specificity analyses of Male DEGs by Barres Lab database (brainrnaseq.org) and Allen brain transcriptomic atlas (https://portal.brain-map.org/atlases-and-data/rnaseq) has been included as Figure 1—figure supplement 2.10.
5) The images of immunohistochemistry staining are not of sufficient quality and should be replaced.
As suggested, IHC images of better quality and clarity has been included in the revised manuscript (Figure 3E-3H)
Reviewer #1 (Recommendations for the authors):
Deiodinase 3 (Dio3) plays critical role in the regulation of hypothalamic T3 availability, therefore, the D3 expression should also be determined along the other TH regulated genes.
According to my knowledge, there is no reliable antibody against dio2. This fact highly questions the validity of the dio2 ELISA data. The only accepted method for the determination of DIO2 protein level is the DIO2 enzyme assay (PMID: 24001133).
It is very true that Deiodinase 3 (Dio3) plays crucial role in the regulation of hypothalamic T3 availability and therefore, determining the D3 expression would provide further insights into TH signalling in brain. In view of the comment 1 under “Essential revision” section, we have now shifted the focus of the manuscript on TTR and limited our claims on TH availability. However, authors appreciate suggestion of the reviewer and future studies will include both Dio2 and Dio3 with more advanced methods in the context of aggressive behaviour.
The quality of the images illustrating immunocytochemistry is very weak. Better images would be necessary. In addition, it should be described in more details where the TTR-immunoreactive cells were observed in the hypothalamus. In addition, colocalization study should be performed at least with neuronal, glial and endothelial markers to determine what kind of cells express TTR in the hypothalamus.
As suggested, IHC images of better quality and clarity has been included in the revised manuscript (Figure 3E-H). Hypothalamic regions in which TTR immunoreactive cells were observed, have been described in result section of Figure 3E.
Cells expressing TTR in hypothalamus have been highlighted in Figure 3E. Barres Lab database (brainrnaseq.org) analyses revealed presence of Ttr mRNA in different mouse brain cell types (endothelial cells> neurons> microglia> astrocytes> oligodendrocytyes). We have given this information in Figure 1—figure supplement 4. However, co-localization studies with appropriate neuronal, glial and endothelial markers for TTR protein are warranted to confirm the cell type specificity.
Reviewer #2 (Recommendations for the authors):
Suggestions for improvement
1.1. In the present form submitted to GEO database, the transcriptomic data on the levels of individual transcripts are reported in aggregate per each experimental group, with no possibility to estimate variance between individual biological replicates. Reporting raw transcriptomic data on the transcript levels in each biological replicate will be beneficial for the readers interested in reanalyses of the data.
It is indispensable to report key elements of the transcriptomic analysis in full. Please update the GEO data with a single file on all levels of individual transcripts in each individual biological replicate.
As suggested GEO data has been updated with FPKM values of all transcripts in individual biological replicate of all the control and experimental groups.
In addition, Supplementary File 1 containing FPKM values of individual transcripts in individual biological replicate of control and experimental groups has been incorporated in the revised manuscript.
1.2. The personal experience of the reviewer evidences that old Cufflink-Cuffdiff Tuxedo bioinformatic pipeline for RNA-Seqs (done after Tophat or STAR aligners), if applied properly, is highly sensitive to individual mRNA levels with minor shares. Nevertheless, in the present form of the description of bioinformatics pipeline in the "Methods" section, with missed basic options applied by the authors for Tophat, Cufflink, Cuffdiff utilits, it is hard to estimate the validity of the transcriptomic analyses done by the authors. Please consider improving the description of the bioinformatics methods applied.
As suggested, description of the bioinformatics methods applied in RNA seq data analyses has been improved and incorporated in Materials and methods section of the revised manuscript.
1.3. Technical figures like volcano plots are important to control the quality of RNA-Seq, but are too uninformative to demonstrate the results of the experiment. Please consider illustrating the differences between PFC and HPT changes in DEGs on a single figure panel by depicting the parallel changes in the transcript levels identified in PFC (for example, x-axis) and HPT (for example, y-axis). At the same time, it is possible to move the volcano plots to the supplementary figures.
As suggested a single figure panel (Figure 1D) depicting the parallel changes in transcript levels (log2 Fold change) identified in PFC (x-axis) and Hypo (y-axis) has been incorporated and volcano plots has been moved to Figure 1—figure supplement 1 (Male DEGs) and Figure 2—figure supplement 1 (Female DEGs) of the revised manuscript.
1.4. Preliminary analysis done by the reviewer by applying tissue cell deconvolution methods evidenced in favour of possible specific trends in cell numbers in the limbic brain regions studied. In particular, it cannot be excluded that the juvenile stress episodes suppressed microglia numbers in both the PFC and the HPT.
Please consider providing the data on tissue cell composition in RNA-Seq individual samples with respect to the experimental groups.
(For details, see Sutton et al. 2022 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022.28655-4 or other)
Such an analysis might be illustrative that stress itself is necessary but not sufficient to induce changes in the aggressive behaviours in affected male mice demonstrated excessive violence.
Applying tissue cell deconvolution methods in our RNA-seq data is indeed a very good suggestion and will definitely provide deeper insights. Due to technical constraints, we could not perform the exact analyses asked for, though we have provided the cell type data for PFC and Hypo DEGs in Figure 1—figure supplement 2-10 using other databases Barres Lab database (brainrnaseq.org) and Allen Brain Map website (https://celltypes.brain-map.org/).
1.5. Please consider additional analyse of the data on the individual transcripts levels reported in the RNA-Seq analysis in a way similar to 2-way or 3-way (when appropriate) factorial ANOVA, to identify possible additive and non-additive patterns of changes in the levels of transcripts.
The RNA sequencing experiment was performed using three replicates for each condition. All these replicates were then used for analysis using the Tuxedo pipeline which uses Cuffdiff2 to determine differentially expressed genes.
Cuffdiff2 combines a β distribution model to account for the count uncertainty arising from the high sequencing depth while it uses a negative binomial distribution to take care of the over dispersion problem that may exist during sequencing. The algorithm counts the fragments aligned per kb of exon per million reads which is then used to calculate p value. Moreover, it performs a Benjamini-Hochberg correction on the p value to account for false-discovery rate. After the whole procedure, the corrected p value (also labelled as q value in the output) is a statistically trusted significance measure. Therefore, ANOVA may not be required on this value as it would not account for FDR. Further, it will not be able to account for biological noise which do not show up in the FPKM values of individual replicates. The noise is accounted for by analysis of raw alignment data which Cuffdiff2 performs. The algorithm is used widely in the field and currently has more than 3000 citations.
The authors completely agree with reviewers that ANOVA is essential when analyzing qRT-PCR data and therefore, it has been included in relevant graphs of the revised manuscript.
1.6. It will be also interesting to know on cell specificity of DEGs identified in PFC. Please consider checking the prevalence of individual DEGs with the help of Allen brain transcriptomic atlas (cited in Yao et al.,2021) or another one.
The above mentioned atlas can be assessed by the following link (https://portal.brain-map.org/atlases-and-data/rnaseq)
Investigating cell type specificity of DEGs is indeed a very good idea. However, not all genes from our RNA seq analysis can be searched in publicly available data since we performed Total RNA sequencing while majority of researchers only perform polyA+ RNA sequencing. We have extracted the data on cell type of top ranking PFC and Hypo DEGs from Barres Lab database (brainrnaseq.org) which was made by bulk sequencing of separated cells. Also, we checked cell type specificity of some top ranking PFC DEGs in Allen Brain Map website (https://celltypes.brain-map.org/) and generated heat map. The figures are provided as Figure 1 —figure supplement 2.10 and mentioned in result section.
1.7. Please consider redrawing all figure panels depicted as traditional bars with the (Median, IQR, SD) box plots with individual data dots depicted. In particular, it is possible to achieve this at ease with the JASP freeware (https://jasp-stats.org/)
As suggested, individual data points have been depicted in figure panels.
1.8. It is arguable to use GAPDH as a reference for qPCR assay in the experiments with stress exposures, since GAPDH levels might be affected and even programmed by stress experienced by animals.
Please consider providing a rationale on the applying of GAPDH as an internal standard for mRNA levels instead of β-actin or other mRNAs conventional for stress studies.
We did not get any change in GAPDH mRNA levels in our transcriptome data and as per previous literature related to our experimental regime and other stress exposure studies (some references given below) in rodents, GAPDH is widely being used as an internal control. Therefore, we used GAPDH as an internal standard for mRNA levels. Ttr mRNA expression was also normalized with 18s rRNA but the results did not vary (data not shown).
References
Kathleen E. Morrison et al. (2016) Peripubertal Stress With Social Support Promotes Resilience in the Face of Aging, Endocrinology. 2016 May; 157(5): 2002–2014.
Jordi Tomas‐Roig et al. (2018). Effects of repeated long‐term psychosocial stress and acute cannabinoid exposure on mouse corticostriatal circuitries: Implications for neuropsychiatric disorders. CNS Neurosci Ther 24(6): 528–538.
Du, P et al. (2020). Chronic stress promotes EMT-mediated metastasis through activation of STAT3 signaling pathway by miR-337-3p in breast cancer. Cell Death Dis 11, 761.
1.9. For future studies.
In the absence of cross-fostering experimental schedule for F1 experiments, it is hard to delineate the origins of epigenetic changes identified in the F1 descendants, whether these changes were transmitted directly or indirectly, via mother's specific behaviours on the descendants.
We have limited our claims in the revised version of the manuscript and studies on epigenetic mediated inheritance of the aggression phenotype has been removed. However, further studies with cross-fostering experimental schedule till F2 generation are in progress to elucidate the molecular basis of inheritance in behaviour.
Recommendations for improving the writing and presentation
2.1. The present description of animal procedures in the "Methods" section does not provide enough details on the environments, in which the experimental mice were grown up. Please provide all details on animal housing procedures that might be stressful (social isolation events, social crowding events, numbers of animals per cell etc)
ARRIVE guidelines for animal research has already been uploaded as supporting document. Also, we have included details in the “Methods” section describing animal housing environments.
2.2. The description of several methods must be improved to clarify details critical for data comprehension.
For example,
Please indicate the details of screening tests done with subjects (females and anesthetized intruder) that were attacked by mice with pathological aggressive behaviours.
The experimental schedules must be reported in a clear way also. In particular, a brief statement must be done on how the distinct populations of "adult control" and "PPS adult male" mice screened by the Authors were originated from. A similar clarification must be done for female mice groups also.
As suggested, methods have been described in detail for better understanding of the readers.
2.3. The initial two paragraphs in the "Introduction" section do not provide the linear story tale on violence, "escalated" violence and a difference of these two concepts of aggression. The logic of this section must be improved.
2.3a. In the introduction, it looks like that the authors consider an aggression trait as a behavioural continuum between "zero-level" aggression to appropriate violence, and then to "escalated" aggressive behaviour. This point of view is arguable since it cannot be excluded that aggression is a multidimensional trait. Please consider revising and clarifying.
2.3b. It is possible to criticize "escalated" aggressive behaviour as unproductive. However, please do not make generalized negative statements on the nature of general violence in the Introduction and in the Discussion. Such statements might blackmail protective types of aggression critical for survival in mammals and humans.
Introduction and Discussion section has been revised in light of the above comments.
2.4. Please avoid to made generalized statements that "A can lead to B". Such statements with a strong modal verb "can" are highly misleading since the development of behavioural traits is not linear and depends on both genotype and environmental context often. Better to speak that "A might lead to B" under certain circumstances.
Several examples:
2.4a. "Escalated aggressive behavior … can lead to antisocial and criminal activities" [P3-S1-LL1-2]. This is misleading for numerous animals and for specific types of aggressive behaviours in H. sapiens. Please consider revising.
The statement has been revised in light of the above comment.
2.4b. "…pathological aggression has emerged as a consequence of early life adversities…" [P3-S2-LL9-10]. This statement is misleading, as it blames unrightfully all children affected by harsh life. Please consider revising.
The statement has been revised in light of the above comment.
2.4c. "…we inferred that Ttr promoter methylation could serve as a predictor of … behavioral deficits." [P24-S1-LL14-15]. – Better to talk about "possible behavioural deficits", not about "behavioural deficits".
As suggested in the essential revision section, the entire statement has now been removed in text of revised manuscript.
The above-mentioned list of examples is not exhaustive.
Reviewer #3 (Recommendations for the authors):
1) Examination of some of the DEGs from the other pathways identified in the KEGG analysis would either strengthen the argument that changes are specific to the TH pathway or highlight that changes are more wide spread.
Considering the key role of TTR in TH transport and KEGG analyses showing TH as the topmost ranking pathway, we explored TH in detail. However, DEGs from other pathways are worth exploring in the future. It is also possible that TH directly or indirectly influences the other pathways as well.
2) Some discussion of how a change in the amount of T3 and T4 could lead to aberrant aggression would enhance the manuscript.
Considering the comments mentioned in the “Essential revision” section, the focus of the manuscript has now been shifted to TTR and it is important to mention that further studies are necessary to identify the precise molecular pathway responsible for aberrant aggression. Therefore detailed discussion on role of T3 and T4 has been not been incorporated in the revised manuscript.
3) Overall the sex difference, which is profound, is not given much attention. There are more DEGs identified in females subject to peripubertal stress than males, yet there is no change in aggressive behavior, so what does this tell us? Also, does testosterone play a role in the sex difference in both the transcriptome and the behavioral changes? If males were gonadectomized, would the same transcriptional profile be apparent and would the behavior also be there? Or would the two endpoints diverge, belying the noting that there is a casual connect between them.
The authors really appreciate the suggestion to investigate sex differences in detail, though this was not the prime focus of this manuscript. However, work with similar objectives suggested by reviewer is in progress.
4) The peri-pubertal stress was conducted on 7 random days from PN28 to PN42. The timing of puberty is different in males and females, being earlier in females. Where measures taken to determine the stage of puberty in each animal (i.e. vaginal opening, preputial separation)? Did the stress impact the timing of puberty?
The timing of peripubertal stress exposure from PN28-PN42 is well established both for male and female mice {Marquez et al. (2013) Transl Psychiatry,15;3(1):e216; Kathleen E. Morrison et al. (2016) Endocrinology.157(5): 2002–2014;Morató L et al. (2022) Sci Adv, 8(9):eabj9109.}
However, we also assessed pubertal onset in males through preputial separation and in females by observing vaginal opening and determining start of estrous (sexual) by crystal violet staining based vaginal cytology. We did not observe any conspicuous changes in the above mentioned visible signs of pubertal onset in both sexes, though it is indeed a very interesting point and worth exploring in detail in future studies.
5) The transgenerational assertions should either be dropped or the study carried out to the F2 generation.
We have not made any transgenerational assertions, rather referred to the observations as “intergenerational inheritance” as we conducted experiments only in F1 generation. However, studies related to epigenetic mediated inheritance of aggressive phenotype has been removed in the revised version of manuscript
6) How was the use of MeDIP specific to the promoter for Ttr?
Ttr proximal promoter (-184 to -33 bp from TSS) was amplified with specific primers (Supplementary File 3) generating a 151 bp product in MedIP-qPCR and this has been mentioned in methods section.
7) What are the circulating androgen levels in the males from the various groups? Could the PP have altered the HPGA that then in turns alters behavior?
The primary objective of the study was to identify brain region specific transcriptional responses and as we did not find androgen signalling genes in our top DEGs, we did not dig down further. However, high testosterone and testosterone/cortisol ratio being considered important for aggression, circulating androgens and PPS triggered changes in HPGA axis is worth exploring in future studies.
8) It does not seem appropriate to refer to "donut shaped cells".
The term "donut shaped cells" has been removed from the text.
9) Figure 4J – appears mislabeled, has Hypo twice and no PFC.
Mislabelling has been corrected in revised Figure 4J.
10) Figure 4L-P – why aren't the individual points plotted for the mRNA and protein.
As suggested individual points have been plotted for the mRNA and protein in revised Figure 4L-P.
11) Whenever both brain areas are considered the statistics should be 2-way ANOVA with brain region and treatment as factors?
As suggested 2-way ANOVA has been performed with brain region and treatment as factors (Revised Figure 3D, Figure 4F-4P and Figure 7) and 3-way ANOVA has been performed with sex, brain region and treatment as factors (Revised Figure 3B and Figure 3C).
12) The word "trauma" in the context used here connotes an emotional interpretation of stressful or fearful events. We do not know if the mice are experiencing trauma, instead we know they are being subject to fearful and stress-inducing experiences. It is suggested that the word trauma be removed throughout and replaced with more precise terminology.
As suggested the word “trauma” has been replaced with “stressful experiences” throughout the text of the revised manuscript.
[Editors' note: further revisions were suggested prior to acceptance, as described below.]
The manuscript has been improved but there are some remaining issues that need to be addressed, as outlined in detail below:
The following additional revisions are essential:
1) The conclusions on large sex differences between male and female hypothalamic transcriptomes are not supported by the data due to the problematic sample GSM5988437 (Female Hypo Experimental BiologicalReplicate1). This sample must be withdrawn from the analysis, and the male-female comparisons for hypothalamic transcriptomes must be re-estimated without this problematic sample. This will help to dismiss any spurious claims about the "augmented" male-female hypothalamic differences.
We really appreciate the suggestion of reviewers and thus we have withdrawn Female Hypo Experimental Biological Replicate1 sample, redone the analysis and revised the relevant figure (Figure 2) in the manuscript. We have included the updated list of DEGs in females along with earlier male DEGs in supplementary file 1. Also, we mentioned in the RNA seq method section that replicates that passed the concordance test (R> 0.8) were included for analysis of DEGs.
2) Data about the specificity of the TTR immunocytochemistry and D2 elisa would be absolutely necessary. The authors describe the changes of 2 TH transmitters and Dio2. Dio3 is at least an important regulator of TH availability in the brain as Dio2. So either data about Dio3 expression should be added or data about the expression of TH transporters and Dio2 should be removed.
No primary TTR antibody control was used to determine the specificity of TTR immunofluorescence and included as supplementary data (Figure 3—figure supplement 1) Moreover, the same TTR primary antibody has been used for TTR western blotting that gave the precise molecular weight band further confirming the specificity.
Considering the need for timely publication of our main finding that TTR is involved in stress driven aggression, we are removing the data about the expression of TH transporters and Dio2 and accordingly revised figures have been included (Figure 4. Figure 5 and Figure 6).
However, future studies focussing on role of brain TH availability in aggression and more importantly determining Dio2 and Dio3 levels with more valid and advanced methods is definitely on priority.
3) Determination of the cell types expressing TTR should be very fast and easy with double-labeling immunocytochemistry and would increase the value of the paper, however, this is not absolutely necessary to support the conclusions of the paper.
We absolutely agree that determination of the cell types expressing TTR would increase the value of the paper. However, we have shifted our laboratory to a new place and the project involving this study is also completed. Therefore, doing the co-localization experiments will take more time than anticipated. In our future planned experiments co-localization of TTR protein with appropriate neuronal, glial and endothelial markers in mouse brain is definitely on the priority list.
[Editors' note: further revisions were suggested prior to acceptance, as described below.]
The manuscript has been improved but there are some remaining issues that need to be addressed, as outlined below:
Thank you for the additional revisions to your manuscript. Upon further examination, it appears that some of the wording continues to be imprecise and is at times inappropriate in over-interpreting the significance of the findings to human behavior. Some specific suggestions are provided below but it would be useful to revisit the entire manuscript with an eye towards assuring there are no hidden biases and that are statements are both factually and grammatically correct.
Specific Comments:
1) The change in the title now makes it both awkward and inaccessible to the general reader. One suggestion is: "Early life stressful experiences escalate adult mouse aggressive behavior via changes in transthyretin expression and function" or some variation thereof.
As suggested the title has now been modified to “Early life stressful experiences escalate aggressive behavior in adulthood via changes in transthyretin expression and function”
2) There are many examples of statements regarding violence and criminality that are inappropriate or incorrectly attribute to causality. For instance, the second sentence of the Abstract states "Early life stressful experiences triggers adulthood violence and criminality". This suggests that anyone that experiences early life stress will grow up to be a violent criminal. It is critically important not to make blanket statements that can be misinterpreted as sound science.
As suggested the statement has been modified to “. Early life stressful experiences might increase the risk of developing pathological aggressive behavior in adulthood
3) It is unclear how there can be an "escalated aggressive phenotype", a phenotype cannot be escalated, perhaps instead state "enhanced aggressive phenotype" or "resulted in escalated aggressive behavior".
As suggested the above mentioned phrase of “escalated aggressive phenotype in the abstract has been changed to “resulted in escalated aggressive behavior”. In addition escalated aggressive phenotype has been changed to escalated aggressive behavior throughout the text.
4) Second sentence of the Introduction – "Such aberrant behavioral patterns are also manifested in patients of multiple psychiatric disorders including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (2, 3) necessitating the identification of predisposing factors and early intervention strategies." – this seems strongly stigmatizing of individuals with mental illness, the vast majority of whom are not violent. It also is not important to the current findings and I would recommend removing such references to mental illness entirely.
As suggested the above references have been removed.
5) Introduction – "Brain region-specific long-term changes in Ttr gene expression and thyroid hormone (TH) availability was evident in PPS induced escalated aggressive male mice, circulating TH being unaltered". – should read "were evident".
As suggested the statement has been corrected to Brain region-specific long-term changes in Ttr gene expression and thyroid hormone (TH) availability were evident in PPS induced escalated aggressive male mice, circulating TH being unaltered.
6) Introduction – "….it is extremely important to understand the biological culprits underlying brutal shift of normal adaptive aggression to escalated and pathological form." – the words "culprits" and "brutal" are emotionally laden terms that are inappropriate when discussing research findings.
As suggested the statement has been modified as “it is extremely important to understand the biological factors contributing to shift of normal adaptive aggression to escalated and pathological form"
7) Introduction – "We selected the extreme phenotypes for better understanding of the behavior observed in human violent offenders and psychopathy" – it is important to limit the conclusions of your study to what you observed which was changes in mouse behavior. Given the enormous complexity and multifactorial nature of violence in humans, it behooves you to not try and make direct connections between your studies and humans in the absence of any evidence that similar mechanisms are at play in human violent offenders.
The comment is highly appreciated and accordingly all the sentences including “We selected the extreme phenotypes for better understanding of the behavior observed in human violent offenders and psychopathy” making direct connections with human violence behavior have been removed.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.77968.sa2Article and author information
Author details
Funding
Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India (Inspire Faculty Award DST/INSPIRE/04/2014/ 002261)
- Arpita Konar
Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India (Research Grant GAP0197)
- Beena Pillai
Indian Council of Medical Research (Research Grant IR-594/2019/RS)
- Beena Pillai
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the animal house facility of CSIR-IGIB, New Delhi, India. We thank Ashish Kumar (Centre for Biomedical Engineering, IIT Delhi, India) for assistance in stereotaxy experiments. Funding: This work was supported by grants from Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India (DST/INSPIRE/04/2014/002261/GAP0125), Department of Biotechnology, Govt of India (GAP0197) and Indian Council of Medical Research (IR-594/2019/RS).
Ethics
All experimental procedures involving live animals were approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics committee (IAEC) of CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IAEC Approval Number-IGIB/IAEC/3/15) that is registered under Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA), Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, Government of India (Registration No and Date- 9/1999/CPCSEA). Male and female offspring of Balb/c mice bred in the institutional animal house were used for the study. All animals were housed under SPF conditions. They were kept in individually ventilated cages (IVC) at 24±2ºC on a 12h light/dark cycle with ad libitum access to food and water. Animal handling and experiments were conducted in accordance with the institutional guidelines.
Senior Editor
- Catherine Dulac, Harvard University, United States
Reviewing Editor
- Margaret M McCarthy, University of Maryland School of Medicine, United States
Reviewer
- Petr N Menshanov, Novosibirsk State University, Russia
Version history
- Preprint posted: July 5, 2021 (view preprint)
- Received: February 17, 2022
- Accepted: October 12, 2022
- Accepted Manuscript published: October 13, 2022 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: November 3, 2022 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2022, Rawat et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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