Planning Grant for a Consortium on the Genetics & Genomics of Social Behavior

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

Investigators

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The discovery that all organisms share similar sets of genes sets the stage to address one of the frontier areas for 21st century biology: elucidating the molecular basis of social behavior. What specific genes and regulatory sequences contribute to the development and function of brain circuits that support social behavior, is there a common "neurogenomic code" for social behavior, and, if so, how does it generate the spectacular diversity of social behavior that exists on this planet? Answering these questions presents a formidable intellectual challenge: there are many levels of neural and neuroendocrine regulation between genome and behavior, and social behavior adds an additional tier because it depends on interaction and communication between individuals. Answering these questions thus requires a large-scale collaborative project for the collection and analysis of large multi-dimensional datasets, describing various measures of genetic variation, neural function and behavioral context, across lifespan and in diverse organismal models. The Genetics and Genomics of Social Behavior (GGSB) Consortium is organized to bring systems biology to social behavior. It includes leading biologists studying aspects of social behavior in diverse model organisms, including birds, fish, mammals and social insects. Across these models, we will define a unified set of experimental protocols centered on the theme of communication: how do signals carrying information about social environment "get under the skin" to interact with the genome of the individual? Using 'omics technology, we will collect large-scale datasets -which we will make available as treasure troves for data mining by the entire community~to describe molecular variation in detail at multiple levels of biological organization. We will focus on brain transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics and gene regulatory networks, captured as a function of experience and genotype. These datasets will be a powerful resource for a growing research community. They will be catalytic by 1) facilitating the identification and solution of conceptual and technical barriers to understanding;and 2) promoting interactions directed at achieving synthesis across diverse model systems, paradigms and perspectives. They will bring needed new investigators with complementary skills into the field through meetings, web-based interactive activities, and collaborative research. Social behavior is a classic example of a high-level, emergent and complex phenotype, and only a Glue Grant can provide the scale of analysis necessary to achieve a transformation in our understanding of its molecular basis. Relevance: Understanding the relationship between genes and social behavior is of critical importance for human health, both to promote wellness and deal with mental illness. Social behavior pathologies figure prominently in many neuropsychiatric disorders such as autism, schizophrenia and depression, and available treatments are grossly inadequate in part because our understanding of the mechanisms of social behaviors is currently so limited.