The Effect of Ethnicity on Human Axillary Odorant Production

Abstract

Previous findings from our laboratory highlighted marked ethnic differences in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from cerumen among individuals of Caucasian, East Asian, and African-American descent, based, in part, on genetic differences in a gene that codes for a transport protein, which is a member of the ATP-binding cassette transporter, sub-family C, member 11 (ABCC11). In the current work, we hypothesized that axillary odorants produced by East Asians would differ markedly from those obtained from individuals of European or African descent based on the pattern of ethnic diversity that exists in ABCC11. Using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) we examined differences in axillary odorant VOCs among 30 individuals of African-American, Caucasian, and East Asian descent with respect to their ABCC11 genotype. While no qualitative differences in the type of axillary odorants were observed across ethnic groups, we found that characteristic axillary odorants varied quantitatively with respect to ethnic origin. We propose that ABCC11 is not solely responsible for predicting the relative amounts of volatiles found in axillary secretions and that other biochemical pathways must be involved.

Understanding the microbial basis of body odor in pre-pubescent children and teenagers

“…In terms of the influence of host genetics on malodor, several studies have described the association of ABCC11 alleles with body odor in adults and have shown that individuals carrying the GG/GA alleles have increased odor due to the generation of 3M3SH, 3M2H, and HMHA from apocrine sweat [ 15 , 16 , 31 ]. A majority of the Philippines population (~ 72 to 78%) carries the GG/GA allele, and hence, adults in the Philippines are more likely to be affected by malodor with sulfur/rancid characteristics [ 15 , 32 ].…”

Human body odor increases familiarity for faces during encoding‐retrieval task

“…This procedure could be one of the reasons why there were no significant results for the hit rates: the social information communicated through the body odor was not as specific as the visual information of each face image. Previous studies have shown that human body odors can communicate information regarding individuals' identity (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity, health status, sexual availability and personal predisposition; McClintock et al, ; Prokop‐Prigge, Greene, Varallo, Wysocki, & Preti, ; Wyatt, ) and emotional status (de Groot & Smeets, ; Wudarczyk et al, ). However, as combination of four different people, the information related to identity (e.g., age, health status) could have been misleading or confusing, while, since only emotionally neutral body odors where used, there was no specific information regarding the emotional status.…”

A missense variant of the ABCC11 gene is associated with Axillary Osmidrosis susceptibility and clinical phenotypes in the Chinese Han Population

“…analyzed the association between rs17822931 and deodorant usage from a large population (~17000 individuals) and showed that AA genotypes were almost 5-fold overrepresented in individuals who never use deodorant or use it infrequently14. Recently, Prigge et al 15. examined axillary odorants among 30 male individuals of African-American, Caucasian and East Asian with respect to their ABCC11 genotype, and confirmed that they all produce measurable amounts of the same axillary odorants but East Asians with TT homozygotes (described as AA genotype in current study) produce significantly less of the characteristic axillary odorants, suggesting that key characteristic axillary odorants do not strictly vary with ABCC11 genotype.…”