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Gene determines whether male body odor smells pleasant
Date:9/16/2007

To many, urine smells like urine and vanilla smells like vanilla. But androstenone, a derivative of testosterone that is a potent ingredient in male body odor, can smell like either - depending on your genes. While many people perceive a foul odor from androstenone, usually that of stale urine or strong sweat, others find the scent sweet and pleasant. Still others cannot smell it at all.

New research from Rockefeller University, performed in collaboration with scientists at Duke University in North Carolina, reveals for the first time that this extreme variability in people's perception of androstenone is due in large part to genetic variations in a single odorant receptor called OR7D4. The research is reported September 16 as an advance online publication of the journal Nature.

Androstenone, found in higher concentrations in the urine and sweat of men than of women, is used by some mammals to convey social and sexual information, and the ability to perceive androstenone's scent may have far-reaching behavioral implications for humans.

In the largest study ever conducted of its kind, researchers at Rockefeller University presented nearly 400 participants with 66 odors at two different concentrations and asked them to rate the pleasantness and intensity of each odor. When scientists at Duke University identified OR7D4 as a receptor that androstenone selectively activates, Leslie Vosshall, Chemers Family Associate Professor and head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior at Rockefeller University and Andreas Keller, a postdoc in her lab, formed a collaboration with them, and began collecting blood samples from participants and isolated their DNA. The Duke team, led by Hiroaki Matsunami, used DNA from each participant to sequence the gene that encodes the OR7D4 receptor.

"With this large dataset, we are able to say that people who express different variants of this receptor perceive this odor differently," says Vossha
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Contact: Thania Benois
tbenois@rockefeller.edu
212-327-7146
Rockefeller University
Source:Eurekalert

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