Evolutionary deterioration of the vomeronasal pheromone transduction pathway in catarrhine primates.

ABSTRACT: Pheromones are water-soluble chemicals released and sensed by individuals of the same species to elicit social and reproductive behaviors or physiological changes; they are perceived primarily by the vomeronasal organ (VNO) in terrestrial vertebrates. Humans and some related primates possess only vestigial VNOs and have no or significantly reduced ability to detect pheromones, a phenomenon not well understood at the molecular level. Here we show that genes encoding the TRP2 ion channel and V1R pheromone receptors, two components of the vomeronasal pheromone signal transduction pathway, have been impaired and removed from functional constraints since shortly before the separation of hominoids and Old World monkeys approximately 23 million years ago, and that the random inactivation of phero

SUBMITTER: Zhang J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC166230 | biostudies-literature | 2003 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature