Combinatorial Receptor Codes for Odors

Malnic, Bettina; Hirono, Junzo; Sato, Takaaki; Buck, Linda B.

doi:10.1016/s0092-8674(00)80581-4

Cited by 2,006 publications

(1,285 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…The receptors lie embedded in the membrane of olfactory sensory neurons, each of which accommodates only one type of receptor. 140 Binding of an odorant molecule by an olfactory receptor initiates a signal transduction cascade, which ultimately leads to the transfer of the olfactory signal to the brain, where the odor percept is generated.…”

Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, the olfactory system is thought to make use of combinatorial receptor coding to gain the capacity to recognize the immense amount of odorants; several types of related receptors bind an odorant with varying affinities, and in turn, multiple related odorants can be detected by the same receptor. 140 The combinatorial coding suggests that most olfactory receptors are selective (broadly tuned) rather than very specific (narrowly tuned). However, the breadth of tuning varies among olfactory receptors.…”

Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…155 Association between the gene OR2J3 and detection of cis-3-hexen-1-ol (green leaf odor) has also been suggested. 156 Why there is relatively little effect of the alleles of a singleolfactory receptor on perception lies in this sense’s complex nature: Many olfactory receptors combine to detect a particular odorant, 140 and one odorant may stimulate many receptors, so if one is not working, others may compensate.…”

Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Genetics of Taste and Smell

Reed

Knaapila

2010

Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science

215

118

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Eating is dangerous. While food contains nutrients and calories that animals need to produce heat and energy, it may also contain harmful parasites, bacteria, or chemicals. To guide food selection, the senses of taste and smell have evolved to alert us to the bitter taste of poisons and the sour taste and off-putting smell of spoiled foods. These sensory systems help people and animals to eat defensively, and they provide the brake that helps them avoid ingesting foods that are harmful. But choices about which foods to eat are motivated by more than avoiding the bad; they are also motivated by seeking the good, such as fat and sugar. However, just as not everyone is equally capable of sensing toxins in food, not everyone is equally enthusiastic about consuming high-fat, high-sugar foods. Genetic studies in humans and experimental animals strongly suggest that the liking of sugar and fat is influenced by genotype; likewise, the abilities to detect bitterness and the malodors of rotting food are highly variable among individuals. Understanding the exact genes and genetic differences that affect food intake may provide important clues in obesity treatment by allowing caregivers to tailor dietary recommendations to the chemosensory landscape of each person.

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Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Smellmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Genetics of Taste and Smell

Reed

Knaapila

2010

Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science

215

118

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“…There is evidence for mammalian chemoreceptors and Drosophila olfactory receptors with high sequence similarity to recognize structurally related ligands [45][46][47][48]. Thus, GRs within a subfamily are thought to detect structurally similar taste compounds.…”

Section: Gustatory Receptor Familymentioning

confidence: 99%

Taste and pheromone perception in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster

Ebbs

Amrein

2007

Pflugers Arch - Eur J Physiol

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Taste is an essential sense for detection of nutrient-rich food and avoidance of toxic substances. The Drosophila melanogaster gustatory system provides an excellent model to study taste perception and taste-elicited behaviors. "The fly" is unique in the animal kingdom with regard to available experimental tools, which include a wide repertoire of molecular-genetic analyses (i.e., efficient production of transgenics and gene knockouts), elegant behavioral assays, and the possibility to conduct electrophysiological investigations. In addition, fruit flies, like humans, recognize sugars as a food source, but avoid bitter tasting substances that are often toxic to insects and mammals alike. This paper will present recent research progress in the field of taste and contact pheromone perception in the fruit fly. First, we shall describe the anatomical properties of the Drosophila gustatory system and survey the family of taste receptors to provide an appropriate background. We shall then review taste and pheromone perception mainly from a molecular genetic perspective that includes behavioral, electrophysiological and imaging analyses of wild type flies and flies with genetically manipulated taste cells. Finally, we shall provide an outlook of taste research in this elegant model system for the next few years.Keywords Drosophila . Gustatory receptor neurons . GTP-binding protein-coupled receptors Like most animals, Drosophila monitor their chemical world with two distinct senses: the olfactory system, which is used for the detection of volatile chemicals, and the gustatory (taste) system, which enables the fly to detect soluble compounds. The olfactory sensory system (or the fly nose) is comprised of two pairwise head appendages, the third segments of the antennae, and the maxillary palps (Fig. 1). These appendages are covered with hundreds of sensory hairs, each of which contains two to four olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) [1]. In contrast, the gustatory system is widely distributed over the animal's body. The main taste organ, the proboscis or labial palps (i.e., the fly tongue), is located on the distal end of the labellum (also a head appendage), but flies, like many other insects, have taste sensilla on legs and wings and, in females, on the genitalia [1,2].The roles of the olfactory and taste systems are clearly separated with regard to the physical state of chemicals they detect (volatile vs solubilized). However, the two systems often cooperate to fulfill specific functions in related processes and behaviors, the most obvious of them being the location and identification of food. For example, chemical cues such as the specific odor of a flower and the sugar compounds present in its nectar are by nature associated with one another. Thus, the odor cue provides a primary sensory input for an insect such as a honeybee to locate a food source (nectar), whose particular chemical composition is subsequently verified by the taste system. Similarly, the typical odor of yeast, which produces high amounts of t...

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“…Over the past decade, geneticists have become increasingly aware that a surprisingly large number of genes in animals code for ORPs (Buck and Axel, 1991;Buck, 1996;Malnic et al, 1999; see also Mombaerts, 1999): about 1000 or approximately 1% of genes in rats and mice code for ORPs, which appears to be even more diverse than genes coding for ligand receptors associated with the immune system. Recently, Duchamp-Viret et al (1999) argued that responses of individual ORNs to several different classes of compounds (e.g., turpene, camphor, aromatic, and straight-chained ketones) imply that individual frog and rat ORNs express several ORPs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Receptor Heterogeneity and its Effect on Sensitivity and Coding Range in Olfactory Sensory Neurons

Lánský

Getz

2001

Bulletin of Mathematical Biology

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Signal processing in the olfactory system is initiated by binding of odorant molecules to receptor molecules embedded in the membranes of sensory neurons. Most analyses of odorant-receptor interaction focus on one or more types of odorants binding with one type of receptors. Here, two basic models of this first step are investigated under the assumption that the population of receptors is not homogenous and is characterized by different activation/deactivation rates. Both, discrete and continuous variation of the rates are considered. The steady-state characteristics of the models are derived. In addition, time to crossing a threshold, defined as a response time, is also investigated. The achieved results are compared with those valid for models with the homogenous population of receptors and interpreted in terms of information coding. The obvious implications of the modeling study-that the heterogeneity of receptors enlarges the coding range and increases the sensitivity of the system-are quantified.

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Combinatorial Receptor Codes for Odors

Cited by 2,006 publications

References 41 publications

Genetics of Taste and Smell

Genetics of Taste and Smell

Taste and pheromone perception in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster

Receptor Heterogeneity and its Effect on Sensitivity and Coding Range in Olfactory Sensory Neurons

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