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MOUSE TEAR GLAND MARKER. “Darcin provides a good example of the distinction between pheromones and individual odours. Darcin is secreted in the urine that dominant male mice use to mark territory signposts. Females, attracted by volatile urine pheromones, sniff the urine into their second nose, the vomeronasal organ (VNO), where darcin, an involatile pheromone, is detected. Darcin prompts the female to remember the location of the signpost and also the individual odour of the male. She will seek out the male territory owner and mate with him, recognizing him by his individual odour.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

PEST CONTROL. “Pheromones have fulfilled their early promise for non-toxic pest control. For example, with sufficient synthetic female sex pheromone released into an apple orchard, male codling moths cannot find the real females to fertilize their eggs (so there are fewer caterpillars, which cause the damage). In contrast to broadly toxic pesticides, the specificity of non-toxic sex pheromones means that environmental impacts are minimised — predators such as spiders and carabid beetles are left unaffected.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

CASTRATI DEFICIENT. “Since the production of many male pheromones in mammals is under androgen hormone control, the chemical profiles of intact and castrated males could also be compared. This ‘subtractive approach’ was used recently to track down candidate molecules for a male goat pheromone. Similar approaches have also been used to identify large molecule pheromones in male mice, such as the endocrine-gland-secreting peptide 1 (ESP1) from the tear gland and the major urinary protein (MUP20), known as darcin.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

TROJAN HORSES. “In some species, hormones or other molecules are transferred along with the male’s sperm to the female when mating, causing females to reject other males. These molecules include prostaglandins in the semen of the red-sided garter snake Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis and sex peptides in the semen of D. melanogaster.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

COMPLEX SOUP OF SIGNALS. “In mammals, which have individual odour profiles easily as complex as social insect colony odours, early researchers despaired of finding pheromones. GC analysis of mammal secretions from skin glands showed they contained hundreds of molecules, with large variations in composition between different individuals of the same species.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

SOCIAL CASTE TRIGGERS. “Honeybee larvae destined to be queens are fed exclusively on royal jelly, which contains a glycoprotein allohormone pheromone, royalactin. This acts on a fat body signaling cascade, resulting in raised juvenile hormone levels. When development is complete, queens are very different from workers: they are larger, have different neural circuits and behaviours, have functioning reproductive systems, and will live ten times as long.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

COLONY MARKERS. “The queen pheromone molecule(s) appeared in the gas chromatogram traces as constant peaks in all queens, overlaid on a complex colony odour background of cuticular hydrocarbons, highly variable between colonies. The candidate molecules could then be tested in bioassays to see if they reproduced the queen pheromone’s physiological effects on the workers of that species.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

THE NEW OUTLIERS. “Some pheromones bypass the conventional chemosensory systems and instead act on receptors on other neurons or on cells in tissues themselves. These pheromones have been called allohormone pheromones because they act like hormones outside the sender’s body.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

PARTIAL STORY. “In mammals, many receptors have not been matched to their ligands.” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn

VARIETY OF RECEPTORS. “In mammals, which type of chemosensory receptors/olfactory sensory neuron has been coopted to detect the pheromone depends on the molecule: volatile pheromones may be detected by chemosensory neurons in either the main olfactory system or accessory olfactory system. Protein pheromones such as ESP1, ESP22, and darcin are likely detected exclusively by VR2 receptors of the vomeronasal system whereas sulphated steroid pheromones are detected by VR1 receptors. Important amines are detected by trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs).” https://lnkd.in/drx5_4e View in LinkedIn