PMID- 22039487
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20120228
LR  - 20211020
IS  - 1932-6203 (Electronic)
IS  - 1932-6203 (Linking)
VI  - 6
IP  - 10
DP  - 2011
TI  - Deterioration of the Galphao vomeronasal pathway in sexually dimorphic mammals.
PG  - e26436
LID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0026436 [doi]
LID - e26436
AB  - In mammals, social and sexual behaviours are largely mediated by the vomeronasal 
      system (VNS). The accessory olfactory bulb (AOB) is the first synaptic locus of 
      the VNS and ranges from very large in Caviomorph rodents, small in carnivores and 
      ungulates, to its complete absence in apes, elephants, most bats and aquatic 
      species. Two pathways have been described in the VNS of mammals. In mice, 
      vomeronasal neurons expressing Galphai2 protein project to the rostral portion of the 
      AOB and respond mostly to small volatile molecules, whereas neurons expressing 
      Galphao project to the caudal AOB and respond mostly to large non-volatile molecules. 
      However, the Galphao-expressing pathway is absent in several species (horses, dogs, 
      musk shrews, goats and marmosets) but no hypotheses have been proposed to date to 
      explain the loss of that pathway. We noted that the species that lost the Galphao 
      pathway belong to Laurasiatheria and Primates lineages, both clades with 
      ubiquitous sexual dimorphisms across species. To assess whether similar events of 
      Galphao pathway loss could have occurred convergently in dimorphic species we studied 
      G-protein expression in the AOB of two species that independently evolved 
      sexually dimorphic traits: the California ground squirrel Spermophilus beecheyi 
      (Rodentia; Sciurognathi) and the cape hyrax Procavia capensis (Afrotheria; 
      Hyracoidea). We found that both species show uniform expression of Galphai2-protein 
      throughout AOB glomeruli, while Galphao expression is restricted to main olfactory 
      glomeruli only. Our results suggest that the degeneration of the Galphao-expressing 
      vomeronasal pathway has occurred independently at least four times in Eutheria, 
      possibly related to the emergence of sexual dimorphisms and the ability of 
      detecting the gender of conspecifics at distance.
FAU - Suarez, Rodrigo
AU  - Suarez R
AD  - Laboratorio de Neurobiologia y Biologia del Conocer, Departamento de Biologia, 
      Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. rsuarezsaa@gmail.com
FAU - Fernandez-Aburto, Pedro
AU  - Fernandez-Aburto P
FAU - Manger, Paul R
AU  - Manger PR
FAU - Mpodozis, Jorge
AU  - Mpodozis J
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20111019
PL  - United States
TA  - PLoS One
JT  - PloS one
JID - 101285081
RN  - EC 3.6.1.- (GTP-Binding Proteins)
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - GTP-Binding Proteins/*metabolism/physiology
MH  - Mammals/classification/*physiology
MH  - Phylogeny
MH  - *Sex Characteristics
MH  - Vomeronasal Organ/*physiology
PMC - PMC3198400
COIS- Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
EDAT- 2011/11/01 06:00
MHDA- 2012/03/01 06:00
PMCR- 2011/10/19
CRDT- 2011/11/01 06:00
PHST- 2010/12/25 00:00 [received]
PHST- 2011/09/27 00:00 [accepted]
PHST- 2011/11/01 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/11/01 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2012/03/01 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2011/10/19 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - PONE-D-11-00414 [pii]
AID - 10.1371/journal.pone.0026436 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e26436. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026436. Epub 2011 Oct 19.