The first step in the perception of an odor is the activation of one or more olfactory receptors (ORs) following binding of the odorant molecule to the OR. In order to initiate the process of determining how the molecular level receptor-odorant interactions are related to odor perception, we used the MembStruk computational method to predict the three-dimensional (3-D) structure of the I7 OR fo...

Two major challenges exist in our understanding of the olfactory system. One concerns the enormous combinatorial code underlying odorant discrimination by odorant receptors. The other relates to neurogenesis and neuronal development in the olfactory epithelium. To address these issues, continuous cell cultures containing olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) were obtained from olfactory epithelia o...

BACKGROUND Electronic noses, E-Noses, are instruments designed to reproduce the performance of animal noses or antennae but generally they cannot match the discriminating power of the biological original and have, therefore, been of limited utility. The manner in which odorant space is sampled is a critical factor in the performance of all noses but so far it has been described in detail only f...

Most organisms rely on olfaction for survival and reproduction. The olfactory system of Drosophila melanogaster is one of the best characterized chemosensory systems and serves as a prototype for understanding insect olfaction. Olfaction in Drosophila is mediated by multigene families of odorant receptors and odorant binding proteins (OBPs). Although molecular response profiles of odorant recep...

24 25 Sensory systems need to tease out stimulation-evoked activity against a noisy background. In the 26 olfactory system, the odor response profile of an olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) is dependent on the 27 type of odorant receptor it expresses. OSNs also exhibit spontaneous activity, which plays a role in 28 establishing proper synaptic connections and may also increase the sensitivity of t...

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 h...

We have undertaken a functional analysis of the odorant receptor repertoire in the Drosophila antenna. Each receptor was expressed in a mutant olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) used as a "decoder," and the odor response spectrum conferred by the receptor was determined in vivo by electrophysiological recordings. The spectra of these receptors were then matched to those of defined ORNs to establis...

BACKGROUND Insect odorant receptors (ORs) function as odorant-gated ion channels consisting of a conventional, odorant-binding OR and the Orco coreceptor. While Orco can function as a homomeric ion channel, the role(s) of the conventional OR in heteromeric OR complexes has largely focused only on odorant recognition. RESULTS To investigate other roles of odorant-binding ORs, we have employed ...

Odorants activate receptors in the peripheral olfactory neurons, which sends information to higher brain centers where behavioral valence is determined. Movement and airflow continuously change what odor plumes an animal encounters and little is known about the effect one plume has on the detection of another. Using the simple Drosophila melanogaster larval model to study this relationship we i...