ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2018
Dominance rank-associated gene expression is widespread, sex-specific, and a precursor to high social status in wild male baboons.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 46 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 76 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sickness and the Social Brain: Love in the Time of COVID.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2021Pooled it
- The Baboon as a Model to Study Human Health and Complex Disease.American journal of primatology · 2026Review
- Social status impacts T-cell responses through synapse strength in the prefrontal cortex.Cell research · 2026Article
- Adaptive immune responses to vaccination reflect social status at first exposure in female rhesus macaques.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Interacting effects of sex and age on immune responses in a polygynous bat with male-biased mortality.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Admixture influences the genetic architecture of DNA methylation in a wild primate hybrid zone.Genome biology · 2026Article
- Widespread sex-biased gene expression reflects female-biased longevity in a species with environmental sex determination.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Behavioural and neural correlates of social hierarchy formation in a sex-changing fish.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Article
- Energetic costs of social dominance in wild male baboons.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- A female-biased gene expression signature of dominance in cooperatively breeding meerkats.Molecular ecology · 2024Article
- Evolutionary and biomedical implications of sex differences in the primate brain transcriptome.Cell genomics · 2024Article
- Epigenetic signatures of social status in wild female spotted hyenas (Crocuta crocuta).Communications biology · 2024Article
- DNA methylation signatures of early-life adversity are exposure-dependent in wild baboons.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Spatiotemporal-social association predicts immunological similarity in rewilded mice.Science advances · 2023Article
- Article
- Advancing methods for the biodemography of aging within social contexts.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- Social and early life determinants of survival from cradle to grave: A case study in wild baboons.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
- DNA methylation signatures of early life adversity are exposure-dependent in wild baboons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Early life adversity and adult social relationships have independent effects on survival in a wild primate.Science advances · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
In humans and other hierarchical species, social status is tightly linked to variation in health and fitness-related traits. Experimental manipulations of social status in female rhesus macaques suggest that this relationship is partially explained by status effects on immune gene regulation. However, social hierarchies are established and maintained in different ways across species: While some are based on kin-directed nepotism, others emerge from direct physical competition. We investigated how this variation influences the relationship between social status and immune gene regulation in wild baboons, where hierarchies in males are based on fighting ability but female hierarchies are nepotistic. We measured rank-related variation in gene expression levels in adult baboons of both sexes at baseline and in response to ex vivo stimulation with the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). We identified >2,000 rank-associated genes in males, an order of magnitude more than in females. In males, high status predicted increased expression of genes involved in innate immunity and preferential activation of the NF-κB-mediated proinflammatory pathway, a pattern previously associated with low status in female rhesus macaques. Using Mendelian randomization, we reconcile these observations by demonstrating that high status-associated gene expression patterns are precursors, not consequences, of high social status in males, in support of the idea that physiological condition determines who attains high rank. Together, our work provides a test of the relationship between social status and immune gene regulation in wild primates. It also emphasizes the importance of social context in shaping the relationship between social status and immune function.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.