Schubert et al. (2021) review the evidence from 577 publications about how the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC), might mediate social odor via the microbiota community to “stimulate advances in our knowledge of this key pathway for social communication.” The idea is that, as part of the immune system of all vertebrates, polymorphic MHC molecules control microorganisms present in the microbiome, which produce odor that may serve as a social signal. MHC, microbe, odor signal is the sequence of steps leading eventually from MHC to social signal, for example, for MHC-dependent mate choice. However, none of the 577 studies showed the odor to be a social signal.

中文翻译：

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MHC 通过微生物群调节社交气味——它不起作用：对舒伯特等人的评论。

舒伯特等人。(2021) 回顾了 577 份出版物中关于主要组织相容性复合体 (MHC) 如何通过微生物群落调节社会气味以“促进我们对这一关键社会交流途径的了解”的证据。这个想法是，作为所有脊椎动物免疫系统的一部分，多态性 MHC 分子控制微生物组中存在的微生物，这些微生物产生的气味可以作为社会信号。MHC、微生物、气味信号是最终从 MHC 到社会信号的步骤序列，例如，对于 MHC 依赖的配偶选择。然而，577 项研究中没有一项表明气味是一种社会信号。