First Contact to Odors: Our Current Knowledge about Odorant Receptors

Sensors

Hyoung-Gon Song²  Jae Young Kwon⁴  Hyung Soo Han³  Yong-Chul Bae¹ 

[1] Department of Oral Anatomy and Neurobiology, School of Dentistry, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea;Department of Emergency Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea;Department of Physiology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Republic of Korea;Department of Biological Science, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Republic of Korea

关键词: Odorant receptor;    chemical senses;    olfaction;    olfactory sensory neuron;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s8106303

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Chemical senses – especially smell – are known to be important for the fundamental life events such as sensing predators, selecting mates, as well as finding food. The chemical senses are decoded in the olfactory system which is able to detect and differentiate thousands of odorous substances comprised of chemically divergent structures (i.e. odorants). The high selectivity of the olfactory system is heavily dependent on the receptors for each odorants (i.e. odorant receptors). Thus, studying odorant receptors may not only facilitate our understanding the initial events of olfaction but provide crucial knowledge for developing a novel, odorant receptor-based biosensor for chemical screening. Here we provide a review of recent advances in our understanding of odorant receptors.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2008 by the authors; licensee Molecular Diversity Preservation International, Basel, Switzerland.