First Author | Arakawa H | Year | 2013 |
Journal | Chem Senses | Volume | 38 |
Issue | 5 | Pages | 391-7 |
PubMed ID | 23564012 | Mgi Jnum | J:317341 |
Mgi Id | MGI:6850750 | Doi | 10.1093/chemse/bjt015 |
Citation | Arakawa H, et al. (2013) The receptor guanylyl cyclase type D (GC-D) ligand uroguanylin promotes the acquisition of food preferences in mice. Chem Senses 38(5):391-7 |
abstractText | Rodents rely on olfactory stimuli to communicate information between conspecifics that is critical for health and survival. For example, rodents that detect a food odor simultaneously with the social odor carbon disulfide (CS(2)) will acquire a preference for that food. Disruption of the chemosensory transduction cascade in CS(2-)sensitive olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) that express the receptor guanylyl cyclase type D (GC-D; GC-D+ OSNs) will prevent mice from acquiring these preferences. GC-D+ OSNs also respond to the natriuretic peptide uroguanylin, which is excreted into urine and feces. We analyzed if uroguanylin could also act as a social stimulus to promote the acquisition of food preferences. We found that feces of mice that had eaten odored food, but not unodored food, promoted a strong preference for that food in mice exposed to the feces. Olfactory exploration of uroguanylin presented with a food odor similarly produced a preference that was absent when mice were exposed to the food odor alone. Finally, the acquisition of this preference was dependent on GC-D+ OSNs, as mice lacking GC-D (Gucy2d(-)(/-) mice) showed no preference for the demonstrated food. Together with our previous findings, these results demonstrate that the diverse activators of GC-D+ OSNs elicit a common behavioral result and suggest that this specialized olfactory subsystem acts as a labeled line for a type of associative olfactory learning. |