Thousands of neurons expressing a given mouse odorant receptor project to a few glomeruli in the olfactory bulb. New observations on mice expressing small odorant receptor transgenes provide support for the idea that interdependence is involved in the maturation of this remarkable convergence.

An odorant-binding protein from the Southern house mosquito, Culex pipiens quinquefasciatus (Cqui-OBP1) binds to the mosquito oviposition pheromone (MOP), 6-acetoxy-5-hexadecanolide to facilitate the transport of MOP to membrane-bound odorant receptors. We report complete NMR chemical shift assignments of Cqui-OBP1 bound to the MOP pheromone obtained at pH 7.0 and 25 degrees C (BMRB no. 16175).

The dynamics of sensory input to the nervous system play a critical role in shaping higher-level processing. In the olfactory system, the dynamics of input from olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) are poorly characterized and depend on multiple factors, including respiration-driven airflow through the nasal cavity, odorant sorption kinetics, receptor-ligand interactions between odorant and recept...

Citation: Wicher D (2018) Tuning Insect Odorant Receptors. Front. Cell. Neurosci. 12:94. doi: 10.3389/fncel.2018.00094 Among the insect olfactory receptors the odorant receptors (ORs) evolved in parallel to the onset of insect flight. A special property of this receptor type is the capability to adjust sensitivity of odor detection according to previous odor contacts. This article presents a cu...

Insect olfactory systems provide unique opportunities for recording odorant-induced responses in the forms of electroantennograms (EAG) and single sensillum recordings (SSR), which are summed responses from all odorant receptor neurons (ORNs) located on the antenna and from those housed in individual sensilla, respectively. These approaches have been exploited for getting a better understanding...

Citation: Gonzalez F, Bengtsson JM, Walker WB, Sousa MFR, Cattaneo AM, Montagné N, de Fouchier A, Anfora G, Jacquin-Joly E, Witzgall P, Ignell R and Bengtsson M (2015) A Conserved Odorant Receptor Detects the Same 1-Indanone Analogs in a Tortricid and a Noctuid Moth. Front. Ecol. Evol. 3:131. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2015.00131 A Conserved Odorant Receptor Detects the Same 1-Indanone Analogs in a Tort...

Citation: Bouclon J, Le Danvic C, Guettier E, Bray F, Tokarski C, Rolando C and Nagnan-Le Meillour P (2017) Identification of Post-translational Modifications on Odorant-Binding Protein Isoforms from Pig Olfactory Secretome by High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry: O-β-N-acetylglucosaminylation and Phosphorylation. Front. Ecol. Evol. 5:142. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2017.00142 Identification of Post-transl...

Individual olfactory sensory neurons express only a single odorant receptor from a large family of genes, and this singularity is an essential feature in models of olfactory perception. We have devised a genetic strategy to examine the stability of receptor choice. We observe that immature olfactory sensory neurons that express a given odorant receptor can switch receptor expression, albeit at ...

Antennal olfaction, which is extremely important for insect survival, mediates key behaviors such as host preference, mate choice, and oviposition site selection. In insects, odor detection is mediated by multiple proteins in the antenna, especially the odorant receptors (ORs) and ionotropic receptors (IRs), which ensure the specificity of the olfactory sensory neuron responses. In this study, ...