Pheromones urine

Together, the two lobster-generated currents that can be measured around the animal s anterior end are complex and carefully controlled. They are ideally suited to carry urine, urine pheromones, and gill metabolites away from the lobster to specified directions. Simultaneously, the water displaced by these outgoing currents results in incoming currents with chemical signals from the environment that can be sampled by the antennular chemoreceptors. 

Bushmann PJ, Atema J (1996) Nephropore rosette glands of the lobster Homarus americanus. possible sources of urine pheromones. J Crust Biol 16 221-231... 

In rabbits, the as yet unidentified maternal signal during lactation has analogous properties in guiding the reliable orientation of suckling, mainly via MOS input (Hudson and Distel, 1986 Schaal et al., unpubl.). Minor fractions may still function as flag contributors, exemplified by the attractiveness of proestrous elephant urine. Male responses show that intact urine is conspicuously more attractive in comparison with the pure insect mammal pheromone (9.) presented in water (Rasmussen et al., 1996). 

Behavioural testing of protein fractions has not kept pace with semiochemical studies. Belcher et al. (1990) found that the mixed scent marks of the Saddle-backed Tamarin (S. fusicollis) comprise urine and genital/suprapubic gland secretions. Both sexes deposit mixtures of pheromonally active large molecules at, for example, exudate feeding... 

Brennan P., Schellinck H. and Keverne E.B. (1999). Patterns of expression of the immediate-early gene egr-1 in the accessory olfactory bulb of female mice exposed to pheromonal constituents of male urine. Neurosci 90, 1463-1470. 

Coppola D.M. and Vandenbergh J.G. (1985). Effect of density, duration of grouping and age of urine stimulus on the puberty delay pheromone in female mice. J Reprod Fertil 73, 517-522. 

Hagino-Yamagishi K., Matsuoka M., Wakabayashi Y., Mori Y. and Yazaki K. (2001). The mouse putative pheromone receptor was specifically activated by stimulation with male mouse urine. J Biochem (Tokyo) 129, 509-512. 

Kaneko N., Debski E.A., Wilson M.C. and Whitten W.K. (1980). Puberty acceleration in mice II, Evidence that the vomeronasal organ is a receptor for the primer pheromone in male mouse urine. Biol Reprod 22, 873-878. 

Nishimura K., Utsumi K., Yuhara M., Fujitani Y., et al. (1989). Identification of puberty-accelerating pheromones in male mouse urine. J Exp Zool 251, 300-305. 

Our recent NSF-funded collaboration with Bets has yielded, for example, the first statistically significant evidence that male African elephants can distinguish conspecific female urine collected at the time of ovulation from urine obtained at the mid-luteal time of the estrous cycle (Bagley, Goodwin, Rasmussen and Schulte 2006). Additionally, we have published the first report of insect pheromones in the urine of female African elephants (Goodwin, Eggert, House, Weddell, Schulte and Rasmussen 2006). These findings bode well for the eventual discovery of the first African elephant pheromones. 

Abstract A relatively small number of mammalian pheromones has been identified, in contrast to a plethora of known insect pheromones, but two remarkable Asian elephant/insect pheromonal linkages have been elucidated, namely, (Z)-7-dodecen-1-yl acetate and frontalin. In addition, behavioral bioassays have demonstrated the presence of a chemical signal in the urine of female African elephants around the time of ovulation. Our search for possible ovulatory pheromones in the headspace over female African elephant urine has revealed for the first time the presence of a number of known insect pheromones. This search has been facilitated by the use of a powerful new analytical technique, automated solid phase dynamic extraction (SPDE)/GC-MS, as well as by novel macros for enhanced and rapid comparison of multiple mass spectral data files from Agilent ChemStation . This chapter will focus on our methodologies and results, as well as on a comparison of SPDE and the more established techniques of solid phase microextraction (SPME) and stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE). 

Fig. 2.1 Compounds identified in female African elephant urine headspace that are known insect pheromones...

Use of automated headspace SPDE/GC-MS not only enabled the identification in female African elephant urine of a number of known insect pheromones (compounds 2-6, Fig. 2.1), but also revealed the presence of the beetle biochemical precursors to frontalin (2), exo-brevicomin (3) and ent/o-brevicomin (4), thus suggesting a common biosynthetic pathway (Goodwin et al. 2006). Extensive behavioral bioassays must be performed to determine whether any of these compounds is functioning as a pheromone among African elephants. 

Although proteinuria is often considered to be a pathological event, we demonstrated that this is not the case for the domestic cat. Male cat urine contains a large amount of the mammalian carboxylesterase family member termed cauxin. Cauxin is excreted in a species-, sex-, and age-dependent manner and regulates the production of felinine, a putative pheromone precursor. This finding provides an example of a previously unknown type of proteinuria involved in chemical communication. 

---