Pheromones control sex discriminati...( l range of courtship behavior was affec...)

"Surprisingly, we found that by knocking out this receptor, we are in a sense uncoupling the mating behavior itself and the gender-specificity of the mating," said Dulac. The discoveries apply only to mice, said Dulac, since pheromone signaling may be different in other rodents and mammals and is thought to be absent in higher primates and humans.

Dulac emphasized that the TRP2-knockout mouse could have many more pheromone-controlled behavioral effects that the scientists have not yet observed. "We have probably seen only the tip of the iceberg," she said. "We still haven't studied the effects of the knockout in females, and we would like to find out when VNO function is required to establish normal behavior. One might imagine that there is a time period during development when the mouse needs to have a functioning VNO, but after awhile, the VNO is no longer necessary because the animal can rely on other sensory information." Also, said Dulac, the TRP2-knockout mouse could allow the scientists to trace the neural circuitry by which pheromone signals enable the mouse to discriminate sex.

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Contact: Jim Keeley
keeleyj@hhmi.org
301-215-8858
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
31-Jan-2002