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 receptors are heteromeric ligand-gated ion channels composed of at least one common subunit (Orco) and at least one subunit that confers odorant specificity. Little is known about how individual subunits contribute to the structure and function of the olfactory receptor complex. We expressed insect olfactory receptors in Xenopus oocytes to investigate 2 functional features, ion...