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Male mice social amnesia1/28/2024 Individuals of highly inbred strains have the identical MHC peptides and MUP patterns, which are likely to be essential in allowing mice to distinguish another mouse's urine mark from their own, and thus are unable to discriminate between each others' urinary odors when kept under identical conditions. Urinary MUPs are expressed at high concentrations by adult mice of both sexes, although males invest more than females in both urine marks and MUP production. MHC peptides and MUPs remain fixed for life, which provide each individual with an identity signature. Another source of odor complexity in rodents resides in a class of proteins, termed major urinary proteins (MUPs), that bind and release small nonvolatile pheromones. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) peptides influences the volatile and nonvolatile scents produced by mice. Įnvironmental factors, such as food type, bacterial gut flora, and social status induce changes in volatile odors emitted by animals. Scent marking may also be used by males to signal females to advertise males' quality and a primer for reproduction. Dominant male mice make more urine marks, whereas subordinate males urinate in fewer locations of a novel environment. Mice are territorial, and urine marking serves to indicate territorial boundaries. Mice show urinary scent marking behavior, which functions in social communication, including individual recognition, assessment of dominance, and determination of reproductive condition of potential mates. Although highly inbred strains have similar odor components, C57 males are able to detect and deposit urine marks after puberty as social communication depending on age, sex, and genetic differences in the opponents. This difference in scent marking depending on the sex of the stimulus animal is likely to be associated with development of sexual behavior, in which males need to set up territories against other males prior to advertising to females. Compared to controls, marking toward a CD-1 male increased after the age of 60 days, while marks toward an adult female showed significant increases after the age of 90 days. When tested alone (control) or confronted with a C57 male, C57 males showed diminished scent marks throughout development. Development of urine marking behavior was investigated in C57 males at the ages of 30, 60, 90, and 120 days in Experiment 3. C57 males deposited more marks than control conditions only toward an adult C57 female when tested at 100 days of age, but not at 60 days of age. Experiment 2 explored scent marking in C57 males of different ages to males and females, and juveniles and adults of the same strain. In Experiment 1, when compared scent marking toward adult males, C57 males showed substantial scent marking toward CD-1 males and even toward the odor alone of CD-1 males, but not toward C57 males. The present study investigated urinary scent marking behavior in male C57BL/6J (C57) mice as olfactory social signaling.
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