Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:Q86TM3 (cage)
 29,987 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Effects of sex steroids on urine-marking activity were studied in male, female, and neonatally androgenized female mice. Urine marking was estimated by suspending ceramic tubes that were connected in a horizontal row with a steel rod into the home cage of an isolated mouse. Intact males showed high marking activity, which was diminished after castration. Both testosterone propionate (TP) and estradiol benzoate (EB) were effective in restoring the marking activity of castrated males, while 5-alpha-dihydrotesterone (DHT) did not have any stimulative effects. Intact normal females showed quite low marking activity and ovariectomy further depressed it. TP and DHT enhanced the marking of ovariectomized females, but EB restored the activity only to the preovariectomy level. In intact females which were neonatally androgenized, the marking activity was much higher than that of normal females. The pattern of the change induced by gonadectomy and hormone treatment in these females resembled that in males. Thus, ovariectomy reduced the activity and both TP and EB restored the level. These results indicate that the sexual dimorphism in the urine marking in mice is primarily determined by hormonal environment during early postnatal age. Hormonal control of scent marking is discussed in relation to the studies in other rodents.
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PMID:Regulation of urine marking in male and female mice: effects of sex steroids. 403 66

House mice use urine marking for a variety of forms of social communication. Urine marking varies with dominance status; socially dominant male house mice urine mark more than those that are socially subordinate. Experiment I was designed to confirm this previous finding. Experiment II was designed to test whether urine marking, measured prior to testing males for aggression, could be used to predict social dominance. Mice were tested for urine marking in 20 cmx40 cm rectangular cages with filter paper below the wire mesh bottom of the cage. In Experiment I, groups of four males were tested in a round robin design to assess social dominance and were then placed individually in urine marking cages. Social dominance was a significant predictor of the number of 1 cm squares that contained urine marks, both with regard to interior squares and for perimeter squares in the test cage. In Experiment II, groups of four males were first tested individually in urine marking cages and then used for round robin aggressive encounters to assess social dominance. The number of interior squares with urine marks, and, to a lesser extent, the number of perimeter squares with urine marks, were both significant predictors of aggression scores and social dominance status. Being able to judge social dominance without having the mice encounter each other could be a valuable tool for future work; confounding effects on such parameters as hormone levels could be avoided while obtaining an estimate of male social dominance status.
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PMID:Urine marking and social dominance in male house mice (Mus musculus domesticus). 1125 98