Back Cover: Sex Hormones Function As Sex Attractant Pheromones in House Mice and Brown Rats (chembiochem 14/2017)

The back cover picture shows a female house mouse sensing sex attractant pheromone components [optical isomers of 3,4-dehydro-exo-brevicomin (DEB), (S)-2-(sec-butyl)-4,5-dihydrothiazole (DHT), testosterone] emanating from the urine marking of a male house mouse. Testosterone was well known to control the expression of sexual characteristics and bodily functions of mammals. Here we show that it also elicits attraction behavior in female mice. When we added synthetic testosterone to trap boxes that had already been baited with synthetic DEB and DHT; it increased the capture of adult female mice 15-fold. We predict that testosterone will function as a sex attractant pheromone in diverse taxa. Photo: S.T. More information can be found in the communication by G. Gries et al. on page 1391 in Issue 14, 2017 (DOI: 10.1002/cbic.201700224).