| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,680,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,080,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,340,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥540,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥2,340,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥540,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Animals communicate using "pheromones", which are tools for accurate recognition of the opposite sex, to preserve the species. Our collaborators, the Touhara group at the University of Tokyo, identified ESP1, which is a peptidic sex pheromone that is released in male mouse tear fluids and enhances female sexual receptive behavior (Nature, 2005). They also elucidated that ESP1 is selectively recognized by a specific class-C G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), V2Rp5, which is expressed in the vomeronasal organ that is located beneath the nasal septum (Nature, 2010).
We determined the three dimensional structure of ESP1, and revealed the binding mode between ESP1 and the receptor V2Rp5, based on these structures (JBC, 2013). To our knowledge, this is the first report of the structural information about the interaction between a mammalian peptide pheromone and its receptor.
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