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<\/p>\nHeslington, York, UK…Scientists have discovered a unique enzyme responsible for the pungent characteristic smell we call body odour or BO. Researchers from the University of York have previously shown that only a few bacteria in your armpit are the real culprits behind BO. Now the same team, in collaboration with Unilever scientists, has gone a step further to discover a unique \u201cBO enzyme\u201d found only within these bacteria and responsible for the characteristic armpit odour. This new research highlights how particular bacteria have evolved a specialised enzyme to produce some of the key molecules we recognise as BO.<\/p>\n
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Key advancement
\nCo-first author, Dr Michelle Rudden from the group of Prof. Gavin Thomas in the University of York\u2019s Department of Biology, said: \u201cSolving the structure of this \u2018BO enzyme\u2019 has allowed us to pinpoint the molecular step inside certain bacteria that makes the odour molecules. This is a key advancement in understanding how body odour works, and will enable the development of targeted inhibitors that stop BO production at source without disrupting the armpit microbiome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Your armpit hosts a diverse community of bacteria that is part of your natural skin microbiome. This research highlights Staphylococcus hominis as one of the main microbes behind body odour.<\/p>\n
Ancestral primates
\nThe researchers say that this \u201cBO enzyme\u201d was present in S. hominis long before the emergence of Homo sapiens as a species, suggesting that body odour existed prior to the evolution of modern humans, and may have had an important role in societal communication among ancestral primates.<\/p>\n
This research represents an important discovery for Unilever R&D, made possible by its long-standing academic-industry collaboration with the University of York. Unilever co-author Dr Gordon James said: \u201cThis research was a real eye-opener. It was fascinating to discover that a key odour-forming enzyme exists in only a select few armpit bacteria \u2013 and evolved there tens of millions of years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source University of York<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Heslington, York, UK…Scientists have discovered a unique enzyme responsible for the pungent characteristic smell we call body odour or BO. Researchers from the University of York have previously shown that only a few bacteria in your armpit are the real culprits behind BO. Now the same team, in collaboration with Unilever scientists, has gone a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,20,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-featured","category-life-style","category-news","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/BO-505.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=104637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/104638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=104637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=104637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=104637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}