G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) participate in diverse physiological functions and are promising targets for drug discovery. However, there are still over 140 orphan GPCRs whose functions remain to be elucidated. is one of the orphan GPCRs that is expressed in the rat and human brain. In this study, we found that is also expressed in male germ cells in mice, and its expression increases along with sperm differentiation. GPR62 lacks the BBXXB and DRY motifs, which are conserved across many GPCRs, and it was able to induce cAMP signaling in the absence of a ligand. These structural and functional features are conserved among mammals, and the mutant analysis of GPR62 has revealed that lacking of these motifs is involved in the constitutive activity. We also found that GPR62 can homooligomerize, but it is not sufficient for its constitutive activity. We further investigated its physiological function by using knockout () mice. mice were born normally and did not show any abnormality in growth and behavior. In addition, both male and female mice were fertile, and the differentiation and motility of spermatozoa were normal. We also found that , the gene most similar to in the GPCR family shows a constitutive activity and an expression pattern similar to those of Our results suggest that GPR62 constitutively activates the cAMP pathway in male germ cells but is dispensable for male fertility, which is probably due to its functional redundancy with GPR61.

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: This paper investigates how the odor stimulation changes the haptic sensations of materials. The authors examined associated haptic impression with odor of Japanese cypress and the actual haptic sensations of 4 wood (including cypress material) and 4 plastic materials with/without odor stimulation employing the semantic differential (SD) and rating scale methods to evaluate physical properties and impressions of the sample materials, respectively. The emotion coming from the materials and the odor were also examined using rating scale. The authors calculated the distance between the associated haptic impressions with cypress odor and the actual haptic sensation of the material, and compared the effect of odor stimulation. The results showed that the odor stimulation has the effect to make the actual haptic sensation related to the physical properties close to the associated haptic impression with the odor.