Dimethyl Disulfide: An Attractant Pheromone in Hamster Vaginal Secretion

Abstract

Dimethyl disulfide, isolated from estrous hamster vaginal secretion and identified by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, is an attractant for male hamsters.

Structures of the Bovine Vomeronasal Complex and Its Relationships to the Palate: Tongue Manipulation

“…In hamsters with olfactory bulb and vo meronasal nerve destruction, mating was abolished in 100% of the males while vo meronasal deafferentation alone produced mating deficits in 44% of the males | Winans and Powers, 1977], In further experiments, male hamsters exhibited reduced attraction to female vaginal secretions and fewer overt copulatory events following vomeronasal deafferentation [Powers et al, 1979], Nasopalatine or vomeronasal nerve resec tion in male hamsters resulted in a reduction in time spent sniffing and licking and in fewer mounts, intromissions and ejacula tions [Meredith et al, 1980], These behavioral changes were attributed to a vomeronasal pump which they had tested previously with electrophysiological and pharmacological methods [Meredith and O'Connell, 1979]. An important compound, dimethyl disulfide, was believed to represent an essential attractant pheromone in female vaginal secretion that promoted male sexual behavior in hamsters [Singer et al, 1976;O 'Connel and Meredith, 1978]. The female dog pheromone, methyl p-hydroxybenzoate, [Goodwin et al, 1979] attracted males and increased sexual behavior.…”

Structure and Function of Skin Glands

“…Especially within the mammals have other sources of vertebrate pheromones been demonstrated or suggested, such as vagina (Michael et al, 1971(Michael et al, , 1974Singer et al, 1976), urine, possibly from or via the kidneys (Vandenburgh, 1975;Vandenburgh et al, 1975;and Hoppe, 1975), male accessory glands of the reproductive system (Jones and Nowell, 1973), contents of the caecum (Leon, 1975), and others. Nevertheless the "skin glands" are worthy of emphasis as both actual and potential sources of pheromones for at least two categories of reasons: (I) Skin glands are widespread in distribution through the integuments of most.…”

Sulfated Steroids as Natural Ligands of Mouse Pheromone-Sensing Neurons

“…n.t., Not tested. The references are as follows: AAPDNRETF, SYFPEITHI (Leinders-Zufall et al, 2004); EEARSM (Mucignat-Caretta et al, 1995); ESP1 (Kimoto et al, 2005), rMUP1 (Chamero et al, 2007); acetic acid, butyric acid, propionic acid, isobutyric acid, isovaleric acid (Michael et al, 1971); pentyl acetate (Novotny et al, 1986;Leinders-Zufall et al, 2000;Punta et al, 2002); 2-heptanone (Novotny et al, 1986;Jemiolo et al, 1989;Leinders-Zufall et al, 2000;Sam et al, 2001;Boschat et al, 2002;Punta et al, 2002;Trinh and Storm, 2003); isobutylamine (Punta et al, 2002); 2,5-dimethylpyrazine (Novotny et al, 1986;Leinders-Zufall et al, 2000;Sam et al, 2001;Punta et al, 2002;Trinh and Storm, 2003); ␣ and ␤ farnesenes (Novotny et al, 1990Ma et al, 1999;Leinders-Zufall et al, 2000;Sam et al, 2001;Punta et al, 2002); dimethyl disulfide (Singer et al, 1976); arginine, methionine, glutamate, indole, muscone, patchone, p-cresol, eucalyptol, fenchone, borneol, isoborneol, aubepine, butyrophenone, phenafleur (Sam et al, 2001); ethyl acetate, ethyl propionate, ethyl vanilline, butanone (Trinh and Storm, 2003). a Note that responses reported by Chamero et al (2007) occurred at concentrations Ͼ0.1 M.…”