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
Section snippets
Experimental procedures
The experiment was performed in accordance with the U.K. Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and all efforts were made to minimize animal suffering and limit the number of animals used. The subjects used in these experiments were adult, virgin, singly-housed female mice of the BALB/c inbred strain (A. Tuck and Son, Essex, U.K.). Singly housed males of the C57B6/J inbred strain (Harlan Olac Ltd, Bicester, U.K.) were used for mating and to provide familiar male urine. Strange male urine was
Pregnancy block experiment (Table 1)
Exposure to the combination of the ligands brevicomin+thiazole was ineffective in blocking pregnancy, the incidence of pregnancy failure being significantly lower than that elicited by application of strange male urine (P=0.0055). Exposure to stripped MUPs from a strange male of a different strain to the stud male resulted in an intermediate rate of pregnancy failure that was not significantly different from that caused by strange male urine or brevicomin+thiazole. However, the pregnancy
Discussion
The combination of the ligands brevicomin and thiazole, was ineffective in blocking pregnancy even when present at a substantially higher concentration than normally found in male urine.21 Therefore, although these compounds are major androgen-dependent constituents of urine from mature males23., 24. and have been reported to induce oestrous in anoestrous females, they are not responsible for its pregnancy blocking effects. The question of whether different pheromonal compounds are responsible
Unlinked References
1 is not cited in the text.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr David Hancock of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London for his gift of the egr-1 antiserum and Professor Kenji Mori of the Science University of Tokyo and Professor J. A. Pickett of IACR-Rothamsted for their gifts of thiazole and brevicomin. This work was supported by an MRC project grant to E. B. Keverne and P. A. Brennan and a Postdoctoral Scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to H. M. Schellinck.
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