Silambarasan Velliyangiri, Deepalakshmi Govindarajan, Sankarganesh Devaraj, Nithya Varadharaju, Archunan Govindaraju
Pheromone Technology Laboratory, Department of Animal Science, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli 620024, Tamil Nadu, India.
Department of Biotechnology, School of Bio and Chemical Engineering, Kalasalingam Academy of Research and Education, Krishnankoil 626126, Tamil Nadu, India; Department of Microbial Biotechnology, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore 641046, Tamil Nadu, India.
Behav Processes. 2019 Nov;168:103940. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103940. Epub 2019 Aug 22.
Pheromones play a pivotal role in intra-species communication for reproduction and social behavior in a variety of mammals, such as boars. For boars, saliva is a rich source of pheromones, however, the identification of additional sources and relative abundance of pheromones in various body fluids of sows is also essential to understand the reproductive behaviors of pigs. The present study was designed to identify the source(s) of pheromones in sows. We collected urine, feces, saliva and cervical mucus/vaginal wash samples from sows at pre-estrus, estrus and post-estrus phases, and from gilts and exposed boars to each of these potential sources of pheromones. All the boars tested spent more time sniffing and hyper-salivating in response to urine from sows in estrus than that from sows not in estrus. The sniffing behavior of boars towards estrus samples differed from that towards the samples from non-estrus sows (P < 0.005) and gilts (P < 0.001). Further, hypersalivation behavior of boars differed between estrus samples and gilt samples (P < 0.05) and estrus samples compared to pre-estrus samples (P < 0.05). This is an indication that pheromones are abundant in the estrus samples. We conclude that urine of estrus sows can be a rich source of pheromones and the same can be used to identify, purify and characterize novel pheromone molecules.
信息素在多种哺乳动物（如野猪）的种内繁殖和社会行为交流中起着关键作用。对于野猪来说，唾液是信息素的丰富来源，然而，确定母猪各种体液中信息素的其他来源及其相对丰度对于理解猪的繁殖行为也至关重要。本研究旨在确定母猪信息素的来源。我们收集了处于发情前期、发情期和发情后期的母猪以及后备母猪和接触过这些潜在信息素来源的公猪的尿液、粪便、唾液和宫颈黏液/阴道冲洗液样本。所有接受测试的公猪对发情期母猪尿液的嗅闻和过度流涎时间比对未发情母猪尿液的嗅闻和过度流涎时间更长。公猪对发情期样本的嗅闻行为与对未发情母猪样本（P < 0.005）和后备母猪样本（P < 0.001）的嗅闻行为不同。此外，公猪对发情期样本的过度流涎行为与对后备母猪样本的过度流涎行为不同（P < 0.05），且与发情前期样本相比也不同（P < 0.05）。这表明发情期样本中信息素含量丰富。我们得出结论，发情期母猪的尿液可能是信息素的丰富来源，可用于识别、纯化和表征新型信息素分子。
