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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2009 Aug 12.
Published in final edited form as: J Neurosci. 2008 Jun 18;28(25):6407–6418. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1425-08.2008

Figure 1. Physico-chemical properties of active compounds.

Figure 1

(A) Extracellular recording from the vomeronasal epithelium. The voltage signal recorded from a representative electrode is illustrated. The black bar represents the timing of the stimulus application. Raster plots represent each spike as a vertical tick mark. The six rows represent six interleaved presentations of diluted female mouse urine (FMU, blue) or a Ringer's control (green). The panel on the bottom plots the average firing rate across six repeats in 1 s bins. Error bars indicate standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) across trials. The firing rate change, Δr, and its s.e.m. for the urine stimulus and the Ringer's control are shown; one notes an increase in firing rate upon the presentation of diluted urine but not Ringer's control.

(B) The response on each electrode can be summarized by plotting its Δr in response to 1:100 female mouse urine vs. its Δr for Ringer's control. Each electrode in a single preparation is represented by a point; the electrode in panel A is marked in red.

(C-H) Physiological testing of the fractions obtained after each purification step. Each panel represents the response (measured by Δr) of electrodes to both of the fractions resulting from binary purification. Insets show overall percentage of activity excited by the stimulus on the horizontal (first bar) or vertical (second bar) axis. Firing rate scale bars in (C) apply for all panels (C-H). Single tick along each axis marks Δr =0. Error bars are s.e.m.

(C) Desalting column: 56 responsive (see methods) electrodes from 3 preparations (D) chloroform extraction: 59 responsive electrodes from 3 preparations (E) ODS solid phase extraction: 19 electrodes from 2 preparations (F) strong cation exchange: 58 electrodes from 3 preparations (G) strong anion exchange: 25 electrodes from 5 preparations (H) weak anion exchange: 138 electrodes from 6 preparations.

(I) Urine subjected sequentially to the purification steps in (D) and (E) does not lose physiological activity: 241 electrodes from 9 preparations. Inset: percentage of overall activity retained by extract (100% indicated by dotted line).

(J) Urine subjected sequentially to the purification steps in (D), (E), and (H) retains most of its activity: 421 electrodes from 14 preparations. Inset as in panel (I).