Olfactory receptors (ORs) detect odorants and are vital for the survival of most mammals. In this study, the researchers developed a new phylogeny-based method to analyse >10,000 OR genes from 13 placental mammals to determine the extent of OR variability across species. Some of the 781 orthologous gene groups were expanded in a lineage-specific manner and, interestingly, only 3 of these gene groups were conserved across species. Of the 13 species, African elephants have the largest repertoire of functional OR genes (~2,000 genes) — 5 times as many as those of humans.
References
Niimura, Y., Matsui, A. & Touhara, K. Extreme expansion of the olfactory receptor gene repertoire in African elephants and evolutionary dynamics of orthologous gene groups in 13 placental mammals. Genome Res. http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.169532.113 (2014)
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Jones, B. Evolution of olfactory receptors in mammals. Nat Rev Genet 15, 575 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3809
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg3809