U.S. Researchers Discover People Have Distinctive Scent That Doesn't Change

October 31, 2008 9:06 a.m. EST

Philadelphia, PA (AHN) - No matter what a person eats their basic scent, or body odor, remains detectably the same, researchers say.

It's serious research, because the same unique genes that determine body odor, called "odortypes," also in part are involved in the immune system, scientists from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania-based nonprofit basic research institute Monell Center say.

Their behavioral and chemical findings are reported in the Oct. 31 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.

"The findings using this animal model support the proposition that body odors provide a consistent 'odorprint' analogous to a fingerprint or DNA sample," Gary Beauchamp, PhD, a behavioral biologist at Monell and one of the paper's senior authors, said in a statement. "This distinctive odor can be detected using either an animal's nose or chemical instruments."

Humans, and other mammals such as mice, have these unique genetically-determined 'odortypes.' So researchers used mice for behavior and chemical tests to see if changing the type of food eaten had anything to do with an individual's body odor.

An individual's odortype information is transmitted through their body fluids, such as sweat and urine.

Researchers discovered that genetically-determined odortypes don't change no matter what foods are consumed. The research has some potential practical applications ranging from identifying individuals to detecting certain diseases, such as skin and lung cancer and some viral diseases.

"These findings indicate that biologically-based odor prints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals. If this can be shown to be the case for humans, it opens the possibility that devices can be developed to detect individual odor prints in humans," said lead author Jae Kwak, PhD, a Monell chemist.

Other contributors to the study were Monell researchers Koichi Matsumura, Maryanne Curran Opiekun, Weiguang Yi (currently at the University of Georgia), George Preti, and Kunio Yamazaki, and Alan Willse (Battelle - Pacific Northwest Division, currently at Monsanto Company).