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Animals (Basel)

Title:		Metabolic Profiling Reveals That the Olfactory Cues in the Duck Uropygial Gland Potentially Act as Sex Pheromones
Author(s):		Liu H; Yang Z; He Y; Yang Q; Tang Q; Yang Z; Qi J; Hu Q; Bai L; Li L;
Address:		"Farm Animal Genetic Resources Exploration and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 613000, China"
Journal Title:		Animals (Basel)
Year:		2022
Volume:		20220209
Issue:		4
Page Number:		-
DOI:		10.3390/ani12040413
ISSN/ISBN:		2076-2615 (Print) 2076-2615 (Electronic) 2076-2615 (Linking)
Abstract:		"The exchange of information between animals is crucial for maintaining social relations, individual survival, and reproduction, etc. The uropygial gland is a particular secretion gland found in birds. We speculated that uropygial gland secretions might act as a chemical signal responsible for sexual communication. We employed non-targeted metabolomic technology through liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identifying duck uropygial gland secretions. We observed 11,311 and 14,321 chemical substances in the uropygial gland secretion for positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Based on their relative contents, principal component analysis (PCA) showed that gender significantly affects the metabolite composition of the duck uropygial gland. A total of 3831 and 4510 differential metabolites were further identified between the two sexes at the positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Of them, 139 differential metabolites were finally annotated. Among the 80 differential metabolites that reached an extremely significant difference (p < 0.01), we identified 24 volatile substances. Moreover, we further demonstrated that five kinds of volatile substances are highly repeatable in all testing ducks, including picolinic acid, 3-Hydroxypicolinic acid, indoleacetaldehyde, 3-hydroxymethylglutaric acid, and 3-methyl-2-oxovaleric acid. All these substances are significantly higher in males than in females, and their functions are involved in the reproduction processes of birds. Our data implied that these volatile substances act as sex pheromones and may be crucial olfactory clues for mate selection between birds. Our findings laid the foundation for future research on whether uropygial gland secretion can affect ducks' reproduction and production"
Keywords:		duck gender metabolome uropygial gland volatile substance;
Notes:		"PubMed-not-MEDLINELiu, Hehe Yang, Zhao He, Yifa Yang, Qinglan Tang, Qian Yang, Zhenghui Qi, Jingjing Hu, Qian Bai, Lili Li, Liang eng CARS-42-4/China Agricultural Research System/ 2021YFYZ0014/Key Technology Support Program of Sichuan Province/ 2020YFN0084/Key R&D project of Science and Tech-nology Department of Sichuan Province/ Switzerland 2022/02/26 Animals (Basel). 2022 Feb 9; 12(4):413. doi: 10.3390/ani12040413"