Comments on: MHC isn’t sexy after all

By: Sex, stats, and sweat | Mystery Rays from Outer Space

Sex, stats, and sweat | Mystery Rays from Outer Space — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:11:45 +0000

[...] (see here for my first discussion); and recently a paper that I found fairly convincing (discussed here) suggested that MHC is not in fact used by mice in this way at all — rather, a much more [...]

By: On odors and recognition | Mystery Rays from Outer Space

On odors and recognition | Mystery Rays from Outer Space — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:27:47 +0000

[...] “MHC isn’t sexy after all” for more [...]

By: Battle of the sexes « Dead Voles

Battle of the sexes « Dead Voles — Thu, 22 May 2008 17:18:39 +0000

[...] for his six but foolishly marrying one five after another? Maybe he ought to have smelt their pee more [...]

By: iayork

iayork — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:17:51 +0000

One could imagine that the MUPs, as typical lipocalins, have an intermediate role by detecting a specific subset of small molecules and transporting or presenting them to some downstream component.

Oh, and I forgot to note that this is exactly true — MUPs are known to transport volatiles (pheremones) in the urine. For example, from Stopka, P., Janotova, K., and Heyrovsky, D. (2007). The advertisement role of major urinary proteins in mice. Physiol Behav 91, 667-670 (a reference that was in an earlier version of this post but that vanished somewhere along the road):

Mouse major urinary proteins (MUPs) are known to carry volatile substances and protect them during their passage from the liver, through the kidneys into the urine.

Some of the MUPs are also found in nasal tissue; because of their ability to bind pheremones they may be receptors as well, though I am not at all sure about the physiology:

Utsumi, M., Ohno, K., Kawasaki, Y., Tamura, M., Kubo, T., and Tohyama, M. (1999). Expression of major urinary protein genes in the nasal glands associated with general olfaction. J Neurobiol 39, 227-236.

Altogether the MUPs are more biologically plausible candidates for scent-based recognition than is MHC.

By: iayork

iayork — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:08:29 +0000

That’s what happens when I get halfway through tweaking plugins and then my 4-year-old smashes a glass vase all over the floor.

Try it now.

By: Kay

Kay — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:04:36 +0000

Seems like you have disabled a little more than just the OpenID plugin…

By: iayork

iayork — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:07:25 +0000

Yeah, as I said, the papers on MHC and mate selection in humans have been offered up at fairly regular intervals for years now, but they’re mostly fairly low-quality — small sample size, poor experimental, design, marginal statistical significance. The main reason they’ve been accepted at all (aside from the expected titillation value of smelly T-shirts and sex) is the apparent support from lab animals, and if that’s gone then the human papers are pretty shaky, I think.

There are a number of other species where an apparent link between MHC and mate choice has been demonstrated, especially sticklebacks — some of those studies looked rather more solid, but I am not an expert in the field.

By: bayman

bayman — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:42:29 +0000

This is a fascinating topic. Can't say I've looked at the paper in any detail, but seems humans can also smell MHC as well...Paternally inherited HLA alleles are associated with women's choice of male odor

By: iayork

iayork — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 23:35:45 +0000

The whole business of selecting mates by smell should have two components, one of them emitting the odorant, the other one detecting it. Well, one very intriguing observation (I mentioned it in passing way back here) is the odorant detectors that are members of the MHC class I family. I would have to go back to some of the MHC/mate detection papers to see if anyone has ever knocked out beta-2 microglobulin, found that mate detection is screwed up, and concluded that it was the odorant emission that was messed up rather than the detector. Just speculating, but it's interesting. Any idea why posting a comment at your site works for me only if I do not provide a website? Probably something screwy about the OpenID plugin, which I've just disabled; I don't think it's ever done any good.

By: kay

kay — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:56:40 +0000

Any idea why posting a comment at your site works for me only if I do not provide a website? Otherwise, I get an empty page with a complicated URL saying something about OpenID, but the comment never appears on the blog. Even worse, when going back to the previous page, the comment is gone!