Ten-eleven translocation proteins modulate the response to environmental stress in mice

5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) is enriched in brain and has been recognized as an important DNA modification. However, the roles of 5hmC and its “writers”, Ten-eleven translocation (Tet) proteins, in stress-induced response have yet to be elucidated. Here, we show that chronic restraint stress (CRS) induced the depression-like behavior in mice and resulted in a 5hmC reduction in prefrontal cortex (PFC). Interestingly, we found that the loss of Tet1 (Tet1 KO) led to the resistance to CRS while the loss of Tet2 (Tet2 KO) increased the susceptibility of mice to CRS. Genome-wide 5hmC profiling identified the phenotype associated stress-induced dynamically hydroxymethylated loci (PA-SI-DhML), which are strongly enriched with hypoxia-induced factor (HIF) binding motifs. We demonstrated the physical interaction between TET1 and HIF1α induced by CRS, and revealed that the increased HIF1α binding under CRS is associated with SI-DhML. These results together suggest that TET1 could regulate stress-induced response by interacting with HIF1α. Chronic restraint stress were applied to wildtype, Tet1 KO and Tet2 KO mice to investigate the role of 5hmC/TET-protein in stress response