The involvement of glucocorticoid hormones in the appearance of white spottings during embryogenesis in domesticated gray rats was studied. It was shown that prenatal stress and exposure to dexamethasone on the 12–14 days of pregnancy of fully pigmented gray rats elicited the slowing of melanoblast migration and its development in embryos. It was associated with a 4-fold increase of the offspring percentage with the depigmentation on the ventral side of body in adults. It was also demonstrated that response of HPA axis to emotional stress was lower in adult offsprings from prenatal-stressed and dexamethason-treated mothers than in adult offspring from control mothers. The role of glucocorticoids in the appearance of coat depigmentation under animal domestication is discussed.
Keywords: selection for behavior, glucocorticoid hormones, prenatal stress, hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, coat depigmentation
