| Title: | Urinary lipocalin protein in a female rodent with correlation to phases in the estrous cycle: an experimental study accompanied by in silico analysis |
| Author(s): | Muthukumar S; Rajesh D; Saibaba G; Alagesan A; Rengarajan RL; Archunan G; |
| Address: | "Centre for Pheromone Technology, Department of Animal Science, School of Life Sciences, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, India" |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0071357 |
| ISSN/ISBN: | 1932-6203 (Electronic) 1932-6203 (Linking) |
| Abstract: | "Male urinary lipocalin family proteins, practically odorant-binding proteins but also could be pheromones by themselves, in rodents act as a shuttle for chemosignal communication and facilitate delivery of the signals for access to congeners. However, presence of this protein in urine of female rodents has not yet been reported. Therefore, the present investigation was carried out to find if lipocalin family protein is present in the urine of female house rat and, if so, to find whether its expression differs between the phases in the estrous cycle. The rat urinary protein was separated in single dimensional gel electrophoresis. A 14.5 kDa lipocalin protein appeared in the urine prominently during the estrus and metestrus phases compared to proestrus and diestrus phases. The expression of this protein in the urine was very low in ovariectomized rats. MALDI-TOF/MS analysis affirmed the 14.5 kDa protein as a lipocalin family protein. Analysis adopting bio-informatics tools further proved the protein as a lipocalin family member. Thus, this study for the first time demonstrated the presence of a lipocalin family protein in the urine of a female rodent and it was highly expressed during estrus phase. This lipocalin protein in female rat urine may facilitate a chemosignal function independently of a pheromone or in association with a specific pheromone" |
| Keywords: | "Amino Acid Sequence Animals *Computer Simulation *Estrous Cycle Female Lipocalins/chemistry/*urine Male Models, Molecular Molecular Sequence Data Protein Structure, Secondary Protein Structure, Tertiary Rats Sequence Alignment Sequence Homology Vaginal Sm;" |
| Notes: | "MedlineMuthukumar, Subramanian Rajesh, Durairaj Saibaba, Ganesan Alagesan, Alagersamy Rengarajan, Rengasamy Lakhsminarayanan Archunan, Govindaraju eng 2013/08/24 PLoS One. 2013 Aug 14; 8(8):e71357. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0071357. eCollection 2013" |
