A unique body enzyme found around the armpit was discovered to be responsible for body odour.
This new research highlights how particular bacteria have evolved a specialised enzyme to produce some of the key molecules we recognise as body odour, scitechdaily.com reports .
Co-first author Dr. Michelle Rudden from the group of Prof. Gavin Thomas in the University of York’s Department of Biology, said: “Solving the structure of this enzyme has allowed us to pinpoint the molecular step inside certain bacteria that makes the odour molecules. This is a key advancement in understanding how the enzymatic process works, and will enable the development of targeted inhibitors that stops its production at source without disrupting the armpit microbiome.”
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.
Furthermore, the researchers say that this “body odour enzyme” was present in Staphylococcus 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.
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: “This 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 and evolved there tens of millions of years ago.”
The research was funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) through a LINK scheme awarded to Professor Gavin Thomas in collaboration with Dr. Gordon James of Unilever R&D.
Reference: “The molecular basis of thioalcohol production in human body odour” 27 July 2020, Scientific Reports.
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-68860-z
