Abstract
The vast majority of animals mate more or less promiscuously. A few mammals, including humans, utilize more restrained mating strategies that entail a longer term affiliation with a single mating partner. Such pair bonding mating strategies have been resistant to genetic analysis because of a lack of suitable model organisms. Prairie voles are small mouse-like rodents that form enduring pair bonds in the wild as well as in the laboratory, and consequently they have been used widely to study social bonding behavior. The lack of targeted genetic approaches in this species however has restricted the study of the molecular and neural circuit basis of pair bonds. As a first step in rendering the prairie vole amenable to reverse genetics, we have generated induced pluripotent stem cell (IPSC) lines from prairie vole fibroblasts using retroviral transduction of reprogramming factors. These IPSC lines display the cellular and molecular hallmarks of IPSC cells from other organisms, including mice and humans. Moreover, the prairie vole IPSC lines have pluripotent differentiation potential since they can give rise to all three germ layers in tissue culture and in vivo. These IPSC lines can now be used to develop conditions that facilitate homologous recombination and eventually the generation of prairie voles bearing targeted genetic modifications to study the molecular and neural basis of pair bond formation.
Highlights
Most animals exhibit transient affiliative behaviors with other members of their species
Reprogramming prairie vole embryonic fibroblasts We obtained prairie vole embryonic fibroblasts (PVEFs) from gestation day 12–14 embryos using procedures previously used in the mouse [23]
These results indicate that pluripotency-inducing genes elicit only partial reprogramming of PVEFs grown in mouse ES cell culture media
Summary
Most animals exhibit transient affiliative behaviors with other members of their species. In a few mammalian species, such interactions lead to the formation of enduring social attachments that, in humans, include pair bonds between mating partners, biparental care of young, and kinships based on family or shared interests [1,2,3]. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) exhibit many forms of social attachment that resemble those observed in humans [6]. These rodents form socially monogamous pair bonds between mating partners who exhibit biparental care of young, incest avoidance, and frequent aggressive rejection of other mating partners. Experimental separation of pair bonded individuals elicits physiological signs of stress and elevated anxiety-like behaviors [7]
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