Liu Hehe, Yang Zhao, He Yifa, Yang Qinglan, Tang Qian, Yang Zhenghui, Qi Jingjing, Hu Qian, Bai Lili, Li Liang
Farm Animal Genetic Resources Exploration and Innovation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 613000, China.
Animals (Basel). 2022 Feb 9;12(4):413. doi: 10.3390/ani12040413.
The exchange of information between animals is crucial for maintaining social relations, individual survival, and reproduction, etc. The uropygial gland is a particular secretion gland found in birds. We speculated that uropygial gland secretions might act as a chemical signal responsible for sexual communication. We employed non-targeted metabolomic technology through liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry (LC-MS) to identifying duck uropygial gland secretions. We observed 11,311 and 14,321 chemical substances in the uropygial gland secretion for positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Based on their relative contents, principal component analysis (PCA) showed that gender significantly affects the metabolite composition of the duck uropygial gland. A total of 3831 and 4510 differential metabolites were further identified between the two sexes at the positive and negative ion modes, respectively. Of them, 139 differential metabolites were finally annotated. Among the 80 differential metabolites that reached an extremely significant difference ( < 0.01), we identified 24 volatile substances. Moreover, we further demonstrated that five kinds of volatile substances are highly repeatable in all testing ducks, including picolinic acid, 3-Hydroxypicolinic acid, indoleacetaldehyde, 3-hydroxymethylglutaric acid, and 3-methyl-2-oxovaleric acid. All these substances are significantly higher in males than in females, and their functions are involved in the reproduction processes of birds. Our data implied that these volatile substances act as sex pheromones and may be crucial olfactory clues for mate selection between birds. Our findings laid the foundation for future research on whether uropygial gland secretion can affect ducks' reproduction and production.
动物之间的信息交流对于维持社会关系、个体生存和繁殖等至关重要。尾脂腺是鸟类特有的分泌腺。我们推测尾脂腺分泌物可能作为一种负责性交流的化学信号。我们采用非靶向代谢组学技术，通过液相色谱和质谱（LC-MS）来鉴定鸭尾脂腺分泌物。在正离子模式和负离子模式下，我们分别在尾脂腺分泌物中观察到11311种和14321种化学物质。基于它们的相对含量，主成分分析（PCA）表明性别显著影响鸭尾脂腺的代谢物组成。在正离子模式和负离子模式下，两性之间分别进一步鉴定出3831种和4510种差异代谢物。其中，最终注释了139种差异代谢物。在达到极显著差异（<0.01）的80种差异代谢物中，我们鉴定出24种挥发性物质。此外，我们进一步证明，包括吡啶甲酸、3-羟基吡啶甲酸、吲哚乙醛、3-羟甲基戊二酸和3-甲基-2-氧代戊酸在内的五种挥发性物质在所有测试鸭中具有高度重复性。所有这些物质在雄性中的含量显著高于雌性，并且它们的功能涉及鸟类的繁殖过程。我们的数据表明，这些挥发性物质作为性信息素，可能是鸟类之间配偶选择的关键嗅觉线索。我们的研究结果为未来关于尾脂腺分泌物是否能影响鸭的繁殖和生产的研究奠定了基础。
