Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • NEWS AND VIEWS

Chromosomes come together to help mice distinguish odours

A study shows that a multi-chromosomal hub assembles in mouse olfactory neurons to ensure that only one odour-sensing receptor is expressed in each neuron — a feature essential to odour discrimination.
  1. François Spitz

    1. François Spitz is in the Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, Institut Pasteur and CNRS UMR3738, Paris 75015, France.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

Mammals can discriminate between a vast number of volatile compounds — perhaps more than a trillion1. This extraordinary capacity is encoded by a repertoire of hundreds of olfactory-receptor genes, distributed in small groups that are present on almost all chromosomes2. To ensure that the response to individual odours is specific, each olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) expresses a single, randomly selected olfactory-receptor gene. Writing in Nature, Monahan et al.3 show that, in the nuclei of mouse OSNs, certain regions of multiple chromosomes assemble in a structure that controls the expression of the full repertoire of olfactory-receptor genes in the nose, while making sure that each cell expresses only one type of receptor. These exciting findings show that interchromosomal interactions can have a determinant role in regulating gene expression.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 565, 439-440 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00010-6

References

  1. Bushdid, C., Magnasco, M. O., Vosshall, L. B. & Keller, A. Science 343, 1370–1372 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Rodriguez, I. Cell 155, 274–277 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Monahan, K., Horta, A. & Lomvardas, S. Nature 565, 448–453 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. de Laat, W. & Duboule, D. Nature 502, 499–506 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Dixon, J. R. et al. Nature 485, 376–380 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Spitz, F. Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 57, 57–67 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Schoenfelder, S. et al. Nature Genet. 42, 53–61 (2010).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Zhang, Y. et al. Nature 504, 306–310 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Lomvardas, S. et al. Cell 126, 403–413 (2006).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Fuss, S. H., Omura, M. & Mombaerts, P. Cell 130, 373–384 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Markenscoff-Papadimitriou, E. et al. Cell 159, 543–557 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Monahan, K. et al. eLife 6, e28620 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Armelin-Correa, L. M., Gutiyama, L. M., Brandt, D. Y. C. & Malnic, B. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 2782–2787 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Crocker, J. et al. Cell 160, 191–203 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Noordermeer, D. et al. Nature Cell Biol. 13, 944–951 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Johnston, R. J. & Desplan, C. Science 343, 661–665 (2014).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • FACULTY POSITION IN PATHOLOGY RESEARCH

    Dallas, Texas (US)

    The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern Medical Center)

  • Postdoc Fellow / Senior Scientist

    The Yakoub and Sulzer labs at Harvard Medical School-Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Columbia University

    Boston, Massachusetts (US)

    Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital

  • Postdoc in Computational Genomics – Machine Learning for Multi-Omics Profiling of Cancer Evolution

    Computational Postdoc - Artificial Intelligence in Oncology and Regulatory Genomics and Cancer Evolution at the DKFZ - limited to 2 years

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • Computational Postdoc

    The German Cancer Research Center is the largest biomedical research institution in Germany.

    Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    German Cancer Research Center in the Helmholtz Association (DKFZ)

  • PhD / PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/f/d)

    The Institute of Medical Bioinformatics and Systems Medicine / University of Freiburg is looking for a PhD/PostDoc Medical bioinformatics (m/w/d)

    Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg (DE)

    University of Freiburg

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links