Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P56851 (epididymal)
 11,273 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Previous research suggests that social stress in the absence of females disrupts male reproductive functioning. The presence of females often increases intermale aggression and, presumably, the probability that fighting----social stress----hyperadrenalism----reproductive disruption. Colony membership of male rats was manipulated in the present research to provoke high or low aggression and the consequent environments that were characterized as high or low socially stressful. The principle comparisons were between all-male and mixed-sex colonies. Results were that the presence of females predictably increased aggressive behavior in both high and low stress environments, yet the adrenal response was different in the two environments. When females were present, adrenal weights and circulating corticosterone levels of males increased in the low stress setting but decreased in the high stress setting. Males cohabitating with females in both environments, on the other hand, experienced elevated titers of circulating testosterone, increased activity of various androgen-sensitive tissues and greater epididymal sperm reserves. The conclusion is that the profound changes in males with sexual contact can attenuate the stress----reproductive disruption relationship.
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PMID:Male rat behavior, endocrinology and reproductive physiology in a mixed-sex, socially stressful colony. 357 88

A paradigm using chronic social stress and multiple measures of the reproductive system were used to assess changes with ageing in the dynamics of endogenous steroid interactions. The 22- to 24-month-old male rats lived for 8 weeks in one of four types of colony, in groups of the same sex or groups of mixed sex including familiar or unfamiliar old males. Measures of endocrinology (circulating steroid levels), behaviour (exploration and sociosexual responses), physiology (body and organ weights and epididymal sperm count) and histology (adrenal and ventral prostate glands) served as markers of activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) or hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular (HPT) axes. Old males living under stable conditions as familiar same-sex colonies served as the comparison group. Results indicated clear chronic activation of the HPA axis in the unfamiliar all-male colonies and of the HPT axis in the familiar males from mixed-sex colonies, whereas both steroidal axes were stimulated in colonies of unfamiliar males and females. Findings from aged males under chronic stress suggested that reproductive dysfunction may be limited to situations in which activation of the HPA axis occurs without concurrent stimulation of the HPT axis. Data on steroidal interactions from mixed-sex groups suggested that (1) chronic excitation of the HPA failed to suppress function in the reproductive system of the old males, (2) their stress responses were little affected by chronic HPT activation and (3) there was no evidence for stress-induced pathology, even in the vulnerable prostate gland.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Steroidal interactions in the ageing endocrine system: absence of suppression and pathology in reproductive systems of old males from a mixed-sex socially stressful rat colony. 849 69

Obesity is a world-wide epidemic, and many factors, including stress, have been linked to this growing trend. After social stress (i.e., defeat), subordinate laboratory rats and most laboratory mice become hypophagic and, subsequently, lose body mass; the opposite is true of subordinate Syrian hamsters. After social defeat, Syrian hamsters become hyperphagic and gain body mass compared with nonstressed controls. It is unknown whether this increase in body mass and food intake is limited to subordinate hamsters. In experiment 1, we asked, do dominant hamsters increase food intake, body mass, and adiposity after an agonistic encounter? Subordinate hamsters increased food intake and body mass compared with nonstressed controls. Although there was no difference in food intake or absolute body mass between dominant and nonstressed control animals, cumulative body mass gain was significantly higher in dominant than in nonstressed control animals. Total carcass lipid and white adipose tissue (WAT) (i.e., retroperitoneal and epididymal WAT) masses were significantly increased in subordinate, but not dominant, hamsters compared with nonstressed controls. In experiment 2, we asked, does footshock stress increase food intake, body mass, and adiposity. Hamsters exposed to defeat, but not footshock stress, increased food intake relative to nonstressed controls. In animals exposed to defeat or footshock stress, body mass, as well as mesenteric WAT mass, increased compared with nonstressed controls. Collectively, these data demonstrate that social and nonsocial stressors increase body and lipid mass in male hamsters, suggesting that this species may prove useful for studying the physiology of stress-induced obesity in some humans.
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PMID:Social defeat and footshock increase body mass and adiposity in male Syrian hamsters. 1694 84