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Submitted on November 29, 2004
Accepted on December 27, 2004
Molecular Endocrinology Group, Rowett Research Institute, Greenburn Road, Bucksburn, Aberdeen, AB21 9SB, Scotland, UK
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: p.morgan{at}rowett.ac.uk.
In anticipation of seasonal climate changes, Siberian hamsters display a strategy for survival that entails profound physiological adaptations driven by photoperiod. These include weight loss, reproductive quiescence and pelage growth with shortening photoperiod and vice versa with lengthening photoperiod. This study reports gene expression changes in the hypothalamus of Siberian hamsters switched from short (SD) to long (LD) days, and also in photorefractory hamsters. Siberian hamsters were maintained in either LD or SD for 14 weeks, conditions that generate physiological states of obesity under LD and leanness under SD. After 14 weeks, SD lighting was switched to LD and gene expression investigated after 0, 2, 4 and 6 weeks by in situ hybridization. Genes encoding nuclear receptors (RXR/RAR), retinoid binding proteins (CRBP1 and CRABP2) and histamine H3 receptor were photoperiodically regulated with significantly lower expression in SD, while VGF mRNA expression was significantly higher in SD, in the dorsomedial posterior arcuate nucleus (dmpARC). Following SD to LD switch, gene expression changes of CRABP2, RAR, H3R and VGF occurred relatively rapidly toward LD control levels, ahead of body weight recovery and testicular recrudescence, while CRBP1 responded less robustly and RXR
did not respond at the mRNA level. In this brain nucleus in photorefractory animals, the CRABP2, RAR, H3R and VGF mRNA returned toward LD levels while CRBP1 and RXR remained at the reduced SD level. Thus, genes described here are related to photoperiodic programing of the neuroendocrine hypothalamus through expression responses within a subdivision of the arcuate nucleus.
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