Sodefrin: a novel sex pheromone in a newt.

Abstract

The abdominal gland in the male red-bellied newt, Cynops pyrrhogaster, is the source of a female-attracting pheromone. An attempt was made to isolate and characterize the female-attracting pheromone in the abdominal glands of male newts. The active substance, named sodefrin (from the Japanese 'sodefuri' which means 'soliciting') has been isolated and shown to be a novel decapeptide with the sequence, Ser-Ile-Pro-Ser-Lys-Asp-Ala-Leu-Leu-Lys. Its minimum effective concentration in water is 0.1-1.0 pmol 1-1. Synthetic sodefrin shows a female-attracting activity similar to that of the native peptide, and acts through the olfactory organ of female newts. Electrophysiological studies reveal that sodefrin evokes a marked electroolfactogram response in the vomeronasal epithelium in sexually mature females and in ovariectomized females treated with prolactin and oestrogen. The pheromonal activity of sodefrin appears to be species-specific since it does not attract females of a congeneric species, the sword-tailed newt C. ensicauda. However, C. ensicauda has a variant of sodefrin differing from that in C. pyrrhogaster by substitutions of Leu for Pro at position 3 and Gln for Leu at position 8. The C. ensicauda variant sodefrin does not attract C. pyrrhogaster females. Genes encoding the sodefrin precursor protein have been cloned in both C. pyrrhogaster and C. ensicauda. Immunostaining of the abdominal gland using the antiserum against sodefrin shows that sodefrin occurs in the epithelial cells, predominantly within the secretory granules. Sodefrin content, detected by immunoassay, in C. pyrrhogaster males decreases after castration and hypophysectomy and increases markedly in the castrated and hypophysectomized newts after treatment with androgen and prolactin. This combination of hormones also enhances sodefrin mRNA content in the abdominal gland as assessed by northern blot analysis using sodefrin cDNA.