Abstract
The olfactory system of Drosophila melanogaster provides a powerful model to study molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying function of a sensory system. In the 1970s Siddiqi and colleagues pioneered the application of genetics to olfactory research and isolated several mutant Drosophila with odorant-specific defects in olfactory behaviour, suggesting that odorants are detected differentially by the olfactory system. Since then basic principles of olfactory system function and development have emerged using Drosophila as a model. Nearly four decades later we can add computational methods to further our understanding of how specific odorants are detected by receptors. Using a comparative approach we identify two categories of short amino acid sequence motifs: ones that are conserved family-wide predominantly in the C-terminal half of most receptors, and ones that are present in receptors that detect a specific odorant, 4-methylphenol, found predominantly in the N-terminal half. The odorant-specific sequence motifs are predictors of phenol detection in Anopheles gambiae and other insects, suggesting they are likely to participate in odorant binding. Conversely, the family-wide motifs are expected to participate in shared functions across all receptors and a mutation in the most conserved motif leads to a reduction in odor response. These findings lay a foundation for investigating functional domains within odorant receptors that can lead to a molecular understanding of odor detection.
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[Ray A, van Naters WG and Carlson JR 2014 Molecular determinants of odorant receptor function in insects. J. Biosci. 39 1–9] DOI 10.1007/s12038-014-9447-7
Supplementary materials pertaining to this article are available on the Journal of Biosciences Website at http://www.ias.ac.in/jbiosci/sep2014/supp/Ray.pdf
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Ray, A., van der Goes van Naters, W. & Carlson, J.R. Molecular determinants of odorant receptor function in insects. J Biosci 39, 555–563 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-014-9447-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12038-014-9447-7