Social defeat stress induces genome-wide 5mC and 5hmC alterations in the mouse brain.

Stress is adverse experience that require constant adaptation to reduce the emotional and physiological burden, or "allostatic load", of an individual. Despite their everyday occurrence, a subpopulation of individuals is more susceptible to stressors, while others remain resilient with unknown molecular signatures. In this study, we investigated the contribution of the DNA modifications, 5-methylcytosine (5mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC), underlying the individual differences in stress susceptibility and resilience.