Peripheral anosmia affects puberty-influencing chemosignals in mice: donors and recipients

A series of five experiments tested the effects of peripheral anosmia on both donors and recipients of urinary chemosignals that accelerate and delay puberty in female mice. Control tests determined that the manipulations, in and of themselves, did not bring about any changes in release or reception of the chemosignals. Rendering mice peripherally anosmic using a solution of zinc sulfate did result in effects on both donors and recipients. For donors, release of the substances in male urine, urine from females in estrus, or urine from pregnant or lactating females, all of which accelerate female puberty, were not influenced by peripheral anosmia. Peripheral anosmia did, however, bring about the cessation of release of the substance in the urine of grouped adult females that delays sexual maturation in conspecific females. Peripherally anosmic young female recipients of the chemosignals were accelerated in their sexual development when the treatment applied involved urine from pregnant or lactating females. However, the acceleratory effects normally produced by male urine or urine from females in estrus did not occur in peripherally anosmic young females. The substance in the urine of grouped adult females did not produce delays in puberty when the recipient females were rendered peripherally anosmic prior to urine treatment.