Responsiveness of vomeronasal cells to a newt peptide pheromone, sodefrin as monitored by changes of intracellular calcium concentrations.

•Sodefrin, a male newt pheromone elevates Ca2+ in the female vomeronasal (VN) cells.•Sodefrin increases the VN cell population that exhibits the elevation of [Ca2+]i.•Responsiveness of VN cells to sodefrin is sex- and hormone-dependent.•Dual pathways, namely PLC-IP3 and PLC-DAG-PKC are involved in the VN cell response.•This is the first to report the signal pathway for a vertebrate peptide pheromone.