During infancy, childhood and adolescence, cues towards the respective developmental status are conveyed by human body odorants and volatiles and serve as a basis for chemical communication in social interactions, e.g. between parents and their child. To find out more about the underlying molecular principles, the aim of this work was to characterize the body odor profiles of different age groups and further investigate the age-related changes in the composition of body odor samples. For this purpose, axillary samples of two age groups, namely from infants and toddlers (age range: 0-3 years) and teenagers (age range: 14-18 years), were collected using cotton pads that were worn over night. Per age group, six participants were recruited. Solvent extraction followed by solvent assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) was applied to isolate volatiles from the samples, whereby samples obtained from all six participants of an age group were pooled. The distillates were measured by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry/olfactometry to identify volatile and odor-active compounds. Further, target compounds were determined and quantified. The qualitative composition of odor-active compounds in samples obtained from both age groups was dominated by aldehydes and acids. The compounds 5α-androst-16-en-3-one and 5α-androst-16-en-3α-ol were only detected in the samples of adolescents. Further, quantitative differences were observed for squalene and its degradation products 6-methyl-5-hepten-2-one and geranyl acetone. In conclusion, developmental changes induce a change in body odor. Such alteration becomes evident in the qualitative as well as quantitative composition of body odor samples which may explain differences in olfactory perception.
This research was funded by the German Research Foundation, grant number BU 1351/24-1 and CR 479/11-1.