Dataset Information

Individual and gender fingerprints in human body odour.

ABSTRACT: Individuals are thought to have their own distinctive scent, analogous to a signature or fingerprint. To test this idea, we collected axillary sweat, urine and saliva from 197 adults from a village in the Austrian Alps, taking five sweat samples per subject over 10 weeks using a novel skin sampling device. We analysed samples using stir bar sorptive extraction in connection with thermal desorption gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and then we statistically analysed the chromatographic profiles using pattern recognition techniques. We found more volatile compounds in axillary sweat than in urine or saliva, and among these we found 373 peaks that were consistent over time (detected in four out of five samples per individual). Among these candidate compounds, we found individually distinct and reproducible GC-MS fingerprints, a reproducible difference between the sexes, and we identified the chemical structures of 44 individual and 12 gender-specific volatile compounds. These individual compounds provide candidates for major histocompatibility complex and other genetically determined odours. This is the first study on human axillary odour to sample a large number of subjects, and our findings are relevant to understanding the chemical nature of human odour, and efforts to design electronic sensors (e-nose) for biometric fingerprinting and disease diagnoses.

SUBMITTER: Penn DJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2359862 | biostudies-other | 2007 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Individual and gender fingerprints in human body odour.

Penn Dustin J DJ Oberzaucher Elisabeth E Grammer Karl K Fischer Gottfried G Soini Helena A HA Wiesler Donald D Novotny Milos V MV Dixon Sarah J SJ Xu Yun Y Brereton Richard G RG

Journal of the Royal Society, Interface 20070401 13

Individuals are thought to have their own distinctive scent, analogous to a signature or fingerprint. To test this idea, we collected axillary sweat, urine and saliva from 197 adults from a village in the Austrian Alps, taking five sweat samples per subject over 10 weeks using a novel skin sampling device. We analysed samples using stir bar sorptive extraction in connection with thermal desorption gas chromatograph-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and then we statistically analysed the chromatographic ...[more]

PMID: 17251141

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Project description:BackgroundReliable recognition of individuals requires phenotypic identity signatures that are both individually distinctive and appropriately stable over time. Individual-specific vocalisations or visual patterning are well documented among birds and some mammals, whilst odours play a key role in social recognition across many vertebrates and invertebrates. Less well understood, though, is whether individuals are recognised through variation in cues that arise incidentally from a wide variety of genetic and non-genetic differences between individuals, or whether animals evolve distinctive polymorphic signals to advertise identity reliably. As a bioassay to understand the derivation of individual-specific odour signatures, we use female attraction to the individual odours of male house mice (Mus musculus domesticus), learned on contact with a male's scent marks.ResultsLearned volatile odour signatures are determined predominantly by individual differences in involatile major urinary protein (MUP) signatures, a specialised set of communication proteins that mice secrete in their urine. Recognition of odour signatures in genetically distinct mice depended on differences in individual MUP genotype. Direct manipulation using recombinant MUPs confirmed predictable changes in volatile signature recognition according to the degree of matching between MUP profiles and the learned urine template. Both the relative amount of the male-specific MUP pheromone darcin, which induces odour learning, and other MUP isoforms influenced learned odour signatures. By contrast, odour recognition was not significantly influenced by individual major histocompatibility complex genotype. MUP profiles shape volatile odour signatures through isoform-specific differences in binding and release of urinary volatiles from scent deposits, such that volatile signatures were recognised from the urinary protein fraction alone. Manipulation using recombinant MUPs led to quantitative changes in the release of known MUP ligands from scent deposits, with MUP-specific and volatile-specific effects.ConclusionsDespite assumptions that many genes contribute to odours that can be used to recognise individuals, mice have evolved a polymorphic combinatorial MUP signature that shapes distinctive volatile signatures in their scent. Such specific signals may be more prevalent within complex body odours than previously realised, contributing to the evolution of phenotypic diversity within species. However, differences in selection may also result in species-specific constraints on the ability to recognise individuals through complex body scents.

Dataset Information

Individual and gender fingerprints in human body odour.

Publications

Individual and gender fingerprints in human body odour.

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