Yisraeli Eitan, Elizera Yifat, Ben-Shaul Yoram
Department of Medical Neurobiology, Institute for Medical Research Israel Canada, Faculty of Medicine, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel.
Chem Senses. 2025 Jan 22;50. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjaf028.
Successful social interactions require the identification of conspecifics and their traits. Often, individuals do not directly interact with conspecifics, but rather with their secretions. Among bodily secretions, urine plays a primary role in social communication across species. Urine provides a wealth of social information, and accordingly, several species, including mice, use it to advertise and mark territories. Here, we asked if kinship relations are reflected by the subject's marking patterns. Specifically, we studied counter-marking patterns of outbred ICR male mice following presentation of urinary cues from conspecifics with varying degrees of kinship. Examination of more than 1000 individual marking patterns from 10 mice reveals a high degree of variability. Variability is apparent across different mice and across single marking bouts of any given individual. Yet, we identify consistent effects of stimulus kinship, and, somewhat unexpectedly, even more robust differences among individuals. Individual-specific marking patterns are also evident in an empty arena, prior to the introduction of an external stimulus. Stimulus presentation gives rise to further changes in marking patterns, reflecting the relationship between the subject and donor mice. Notably, while stimuli representing highly distinct kinship relations induce robust differences at the population level, finer distinctions, including discrimination of same-strain conspecifics and self-urine, are only displayed by a subset of mice. Thus, while counter marking patterns are determined by a variety of factors, some of which cannot be easily controlled or measured, they ultimately reflect the identity of the marker and the kinship relation with the stimulus donor.
成功的社交互动需要识别同种个体及其特征。通常，个体并不直接与同种个体互动，而是与它们的分泌物互动。在身体分泌物中，尿液在跨物种的社交交流中起着主要作用。尿液提供了丰富的社交信息，因此，包括小鼠在内的几种物种都用它来宣传和标记领地。在这里，我们询问亲属关系是否通过个体的标记模式得以体现。具体而言，我们研究了远交系ICR雄性小鼠在接触来自不同亲属关系的同种个体的尿液线索后的反标记模式。对10只小鼠的1000多个个体标记模式的检查显示出高度的变异性。这种变异性在不同小鼠之间以及任何给定个体的单次标记过程中都很明显。然而，我们确定了刺激亲属关系的一致影响，而且有点出乎意料的是，个体之间的差异甚至更显著。在引入外部刺激之前，个体特异性的标记模式在空的实验场地中也很明显。刺激的呈现会导致标记模式的进一步变化，反映出受试小鼠与供体小鼠之间的关系。值得注意的是，虽然代表高度不同亲属关系的刺激在群体水平上会引起显著差异，但更细微的差异，包括对同品系同种个体和自身尿液的区分，只有一部分小鼠能够表现出来。因此，虽然反标记模式由多种因素决定，其中一些因素难以轻易控制或测量，但它们最终反映了标记个体的身份以及与刺激供体的亲属关系。
