Dissecting anxiety in the vervet monkey: A search for association between polymorphisms in the corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) genes and anxious behavior

The involvement of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) in the pathophysiology of anxiety and anxiety-related disorders is well established. The objective of this study is to explore the genetic variations in the CRH and NPY genes in a well-documented behavioral animal model, the vervet monkey (Chlorocebus aethiops sabaeus), in order to uncover a possible association between these polymorphisms and behavioral traits quantitatively extracted following analysis of social behavior and responses to novelty challenges.;Polymorphism discovery analysis revealed the presence of 9 vervet CRH SNPs and 9 vervet NPY SNPs; the SNPs are relatively evenly distributed across the regions covered. An association between one intronic NPY SNP and "defensive aggression" was detected.;These results are coherent with other reports implicating NPY in defensive aggressive behavior, and support the notion that fear responses are fundamental behavioral traits for the dissection of anxiety.;The vervet CRH and NPY genes were amplified and sequenced; the priority was given to the regions expanding from -1kb upstream of the transcription initiation site (where most of the regulatory elements are found in both genes) through the second exon.