Searching for the Ligands of Odorant Receptors |
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Authors: | Bettina Malnic |
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Institution: | 1.Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química,Universidade de S?o Paulo,S?o Paulo,Brazil |
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Abstract: | Through the sense of smell mammals can detect and discriminate between a large variety of odorants present in the surrounding
environment. Odorants bind to a large repertoire of odorant receptors located in the cilia of olfactory sensory neurons of
the nose. Each olfactory neuron expresses one single type of odorant receptor, and neurons expressing the same type of receptor
project their axons to one or a few glomeruli in the olfactory bulb, creating a map of odorant receptor inputs. The information
is then passed on to other regions of the brain, leading to odorant perception. To understand how the olfactory system discriminates
between odorants, it is necessary to determine the odorant specificities of individual odorant receptors. These studies are
complicated by the extremely large size of the odorant receptor family and by the poor functional expression of these receptors
in heterologous cells. This article provides an overview of the methods that are currently being used to investigate odorant
receptor–ligand interactions. |
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Keywords: | Odorant receptor (OR) Guanine nucleotide exchange factor (GEF) Receptor transporting protein (RTP) G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) Endoplasmic reticulum (ER) Olfactory sensory neurons Heterologous expression Ligands Odorants |
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