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Olfactory receptors are able to detect air-borne odour molecules that enter the nasal cavity and bind to olfactory receptors. The activation of olfactory receptors results in olfactory receptor neurons sending an impulse to the brain’s olfactory system.
Genetic comparison of rainforest foraging and neighboring agricultural communities in Uganda and the Philippines shows no distinction in the size of olfactory receptor gene repertoires, but there is evidence for subsistence-related local adaptation.
Drosophila larvae may benefit each other at lower densities but compete at higher densities. Here, Verschut et al. identify a mechanism enabling Drosophila females to favor egg-laying sites containing medium concentrations of aggregation pheromones, which may facilitate choice of favorable sites.
Through the use of cryo-electron microscopy and molecular dynamics stimulations, mechanistic insight into the binding of an odorant to the human odorant receptor OR51E2 is provided.
Odor stimuli are transduced in cilia of olfactory sensory neurons. Here the authors identify an odor stimulus-regulated organelle that specifically stores and releases transduction proteins in the dendrite.
As conversion of odor signals to a two-dimensional map of activated glomeruli in the olfactory bulb is the key to odor recognition, decoding and deorphanizing of odorant receptors in the olfactory map is of great interest. Two genome-wide techniques now offer the ability to pair any odorant with its receptors.
Olfactory receptors signal through G protein βγ subunits to silence the expression of other olfactory receptors within a single olfactory sensory neuron.
