Social Agression in a Single Gene!

Imprinting is an interesting genetic phenomenon where one parental allele at a certain gene is preferntially expressed over another. For instance, in one gene the maternal copy inherited might be expressed while the paternal copy is silenced. In an article published in Nature today, researchers identified an imprinted gene that affects social behavior in mice. The gene Grb10 is normally paternally expressed and encodes a protein that interacts in different signaling pathways. When the paternal copy of the gene is knocked out, researchers found that the mice exhibted increased social agression and dominance behaviors.

The evolution of imprinting is thought be a result of conflict between parents; sometimes a male parent will have different goals for his offspring than the female parents. This gene's pattern of expression may be a survival strategy: over or under express to create a wide variety of offspring that will fit into different social niches, as a New York Times article suggests.