National Research Center for Wildlife-Borne Diseases, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Mar 17;24(6):5731. doi: 10.3390/ijms24065731.
Female mice can discriminate the urinary odors of male mice due to their olfactory acuity. Parasitic infection or subclinical infection can decrease the odor attractiveness of male mice and finally lead to aversion or avoidance responses in odor selection for female mice. is a kind of tissue-parasitizing nematode that causes trichinellosis, a zoonotic parasitic disease that spreads throughout the world. However, the reproductive injury caused by infection was not fully revealed. In this study, we explored the effect of infection on the reproductive capacity in ICR/CD-1 male mice. We identified eight volatile compounds in urine by GC-MS analysis, and the results indicated that the contents of dimethyl sulfone, Z-7-tetradecen-1-ol, 6-Hydroxy-6-methyl-3-heptanone and (S)-2-sec-butyl-4,5-dihydrothiazole were significantly downregulated after parasitic infection, which might lead to the reduction of attractiveness of male mice urine to females. On the other hand, parasitic infection decreased sperm quality and downregulated the expression levels of , and , and these genes were strongly related to spermatogenesis. In summary, this study revealed that the reproductive injury caused by infection in ICR/CD-1 male mice could be associated with a decrease in urine pheromone content and sperm quality.
雌性小鼠由于嗅觉敏锐，可以区分雄性小鼠的尿液气味。寄生虫感染或亚临床感染会降低雄性小鼠尿液的气味吸引力，最终导致雌性小鼠在选择气味时产生厌恶或回避反应。旋毛虫是一种组织寄生线虫，可引起旋毛虫病，这是一种全球性的人畜共患寄生虫病。然而，旋毛虫感染引起的生殖损伤尚未完全揭示。在这项研究中，我们探讨了旋毛虫感染对 ICR/CD-1 雄性小鼠生殖能力的影响。我们通过 GC-MS 分析鉴定了尿液中的八种挥发性化合物，结果表明寄生感染后二甲亚砜、Z-7-十四碳烯-1-醇、6-羟基-6-甲基-3-庚酮和（S）-2-仲丁基-4,5-二氢噻唑的含量显著下调，这可能导致雄性小鼠尿液对雌性的吸引力降低。另一方面，寄生虫感染降低了精子质量，并下调了 、 和 的表达水平，这些基因与精子发生密切相关。总之，本研究揭示了 ICR/CD-1 雄性小鼠旋毛虫感染引起的生殖损伤可能与尿液信息素含量和精子质量下降有关。
