Faecal bile acids are natural ligands of the mouse accessory olfactory system

Wayne I. Doyle, Jordan A. Dinser, Hillary L. Cansler, Xingjian Zhang, Daniel D. Dinh, Natasha S. Browder, Ian M. Riddington and Julian P. Meeks ()
Additional contact information
Wayne I. Doyle: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Jordan A. Dinser: The University of Texas
Hillary L. Cansler: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Xingjian Zhang: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Daniel D. Dinh: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Natasha S. Browder: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Ian M. Riddington: The University of Texas
Julian P. Meeks: The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract The accessory olfactory system (AOS) guides behaviours that are important for survival and reproduction, but understanding of AOS function is limited by a lack of identified natural ligands. Here we report that mouse faeces are a robust source of AOS chemosignals and identify bile acids as a class of natural AOS ligands. Single-unit electrophysiological recordings from accessory olfactory bulb neurons in ex vivo preparations show that AOS neurons are strongly and selectively activated by peripheral stimulation with mouse faecal extracts. Faecal extracts contain several unconjugated bile acids that cause concentration-dependent neuronal activity in the AOS. Many AOS neurons respond selectively to bile acids that are variably excreted in male and female mouse faeces, and others respond to bile acids absent in mouse faeces. These results identify faeces as a natural source of AOS information, and suggest that bile acids may be mammalian pheromones and kairomones.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms11936 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms11936

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms11936

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().