School of Physical Therapy, Slippery Rock University, Slippery Rock, PA 16057, USA.
Brain Res. 2011 Feb 23;1375:7-18. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2010.12.069. Epub 2010 Dec 30.
Knowledge of the vomeronasal neuroepithelium (VNNE) microanatomy is disproportionately based on rodents. To broaden our knowledge, we examined olfactory marker protein (OMP) expression in a sample of twenty-three non-human primates. The density of OMP (+) vomeronasal sensory neurons (VSNs) in the VNNE was measured. Here we compared OMP (+) VSN density in five species of Saguinus (a genus of New World monkey) of different ages to a comparative primate sample that included representatives of every superfamily in which a VNO is postnatally present. In Saguinus spp., the VNNE at birth is thin, usually comprising one or two nuclear rows. At all ages studied, few VNNE cells are OMP reactive as view in coronal sections. In the comparative sample, the OMP (+) VSNs appear to be far more numerous in the spider monkey (another New World monkey) and the bushbaby (a distant relative). Other species (e.g., owl monkey) had a similar low density of OMP (+) VSNs as in Saguinus. These results expand our earlier finding that few VSNs are OMP (+) in Saguinus geoffroyi to other species of the genus. Our sample indicates that the number of OMP (+) VSNs in primates varies from ubiquitous to few with New World monkeys varying the most. The scarcity of OMP (+) cells in some primate VNOs reflects a lower number of terminally differentiated VSNs compared to a diverse range of mammals. If primates with relatively few OMP (+) VSNs have a functional vomeronasal system, OMP is not critical for stimulus detection.
对犁鼻器神经外胚层（VNNE）微解剖结构的了解主要基于啮齿动物。为了拓宽我们的知识面，我们研究了 23 种非人类灵长类动物的嗅觉标记蛋白（OMP）表达。测量了 VNNE 中 OMP（+）犁鼻感觉神经元（VSN）的密度。在这里，我们将 5 种不同年龄的 Saguinus （新世界猴的一个属）的 OMP（+）VSN 密度与包括具有产后 VNO 的每个超家族代表的比较灵长类动物样本进行了比较。在 Saguinus spp.中，出生时的 VNNE 很薄，通常包含一个或两个核列。在所有研究的年龄中，冠状切片中很少有 VNNE 细胞对 OMP 有反应。在比较样本中，蜘蛛猴（另一种新世界猴）和丛猴（一种远亲）的 OMP（+）VSN 似乎要多得多。其他物种（例如，夜猴）的 OMP（+）VSN 密度与 Saguinus 相似较低。这些结果将我们之前在 Saguinus geoffroyi 中发现的少数 VSN 对 OMP 呈阳性的发现扩展到了该属的其他物种。我们的样本表明，灵长类动物中 OMP（+）VSN 的数量从普遍存在到很少，而新世界猴的变化最大。一些灵长类动物 VNO 中 OMP（+）细胞的缺乏反映了与各种哺乳动物相比，终末分化的 VSN 数量较少。如果具有相对较少 OMP（+）VSN 的灵长类动物具有功能性犁鼻系统，那么 OMP 对于刺激检测并不重要。
