Research Perspective Volume 2, Issue 2 pp 107—110

Figure 1. Age related changes in AVP expression and DNA methylation. (A) Aging does not affect AVP mRNA expression in control mice. Early-life adversity (ELA) leads to a persistent increase in AVP mRNA expression. *P < 0.05. (B) Age-dependent hypo-methylation occurs only in the control mice. Early-life adversity leads to a persistent hypomethylation across the enhancer region in 6-week old mice. **P < 0.005 and ***P < 0.0001. (C) Schematic diagram of the AVP and oxytocin genes orientated tail-to-tail and separated by the intergenic region (IGR). Exons are indicated by open numbered boxes and distribution of CpG residues is shown. The downstream enhancer is boxed in gray with MeCP2 DNA-binding sites (CpG10, 12, and 14) indicated by green lines. (D) Comparison of the methylation status of all CpGs in the IGR between 6-week and 1-year aged control mice shows that the majority of CpGs in the control mice undergo hypomethylation. In contrast, those methylation landmarks mapping to MeCP2 DNA-binding sites (marked in green) are protected from age-associated changes in DNA methylation.