文章基本信息

标题：Odortypes: Their origin and composition
本地全文：下载
作者：Kunio Yamazaki ; Gary K. Beauchamp ; Alan Singer 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：1999
卷号：96
期号：4
页码：1522-1525
DOI：10.1073/pnas.96.4.1522
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Odors that distinguish one individual from another member of the species and are determined by polymorphic genes are called odortypes. Odortypes and their considerable societal significance have been studied intimately only in mice and mainly with respect to the genes of the major histocompatibility complex. Further understanding and the matter of human relevance have been hampered by the apparent restriction of odortype expression to urine. The present finding that odorants comprising prerenal odortypes are already present in blood, albeit in masked form, affords the basis of a comprehensive view of odortypes. Accordingly, major histocompatibility complex and other polymorphic genes of antiquity are seen inter alia as agents of normal variation, which entails quantitative variation in output of odorant metabolites. Relatively few such normal variations should suffice for a vast range of compound odors whose specificity is determined by combinative assortment of the same set of individual volatile compounds.
关键词：major histocompatibility complex ; chemosensation ; olfaction ; behavior