TIANXIANG ZHANG1,#, MEISHAN ZHANG1,#, MINGHUI SHI1,#, WEIJIANG JIN1,#, SHUMIAO ZHANG2,#, MENGYUAN FAN3, YIMENG LI1, YUPING MENG2, XUELIN TIAN4, SHUQIANG LIU1,*, DEFU HU1,*
BIOCELL, Vol.45, No.2, pp. 281-306, 2021, DOI:10.32604/biocell.2021.010277
Abstract Male muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus L.) secrete musk from their scent glands during musk secretion season.
Musk plays an important role as a communication pheromone during the breeding season. In this study, gas
chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) was used to analyze the main components of musk. The GC–MS
results after methyl esterification showed that 71.55% of the musk is composed of fatty acids. The other components
of muskrat musk include cholesterol (9.31%) and other organics. Transcriptome comparison between musk secretion
and non-secretion seasons showed significant changes in the scent glands for 53 genes involved in fatty acid and
cholesterol synthesis and metabolism… More >
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