Journal article
Distinct Odorant Receptor Response Patterns to Aliphatic Odorants in Freely Behaving Mice
Chemical senses, Vol.50, bjaf041
01/22/2025
DOI: 10.1093/chemse/bjaf041
PMCID: PMC12527250
PMID: 41027018
Abstract
In mammals, odors are encoded by a combinatorial code determined by the pattern of responses across hundreds of odorant receptors expressed monogenically and monoallelically in olfactory sensory neurons. The compositions of these receptor response patterns are largely unknown and overlap between them has yet to be explored. Activity-dependent reporter gene expression in freely behaving S100a5-tauGFP mice allowed capture of activated olfactory sensory neurons and identified 168 receptors responsive to moderate concentrations of one or more of 12 aliphatic (5-8 carbons) ketones, alcohols, and carboxylic acids. These 12 response patterns are remarkably different, with only 19% of the receptors responding to more than 1 of these odorants. This distinctiveness corresponds with the ease of discrimination of these odorants and may help maintain perceptual constancy in the face of response pattern variability, such as across odorant concentrations. This set of 168 receptors is not specific to aliphatic odorants but instead has 16% overlap with the receptors responsive to seven odors tested previously in vivo, consistent with a receptor repertoire evolved to produce combinatorial codes. Aliphatic odorant response pattern similarity depends more upon odorant functional group than carbon chain length but the impact of chain length increases with the number of carbons. The response patterns to these aliphatic odorants are mostly composed of unrelated receptors, except some patterns contain minor subsets of closely related receptors. These findings argue that the major selective forces driving OR evolution are expansion of the odorant receptor gene family and the production of distinct response patterns.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Distinct Odorant Receptor Response Patterns to Aliphatic Odorants in Freely Behaving Mice
- Creators
- Claire A de March - Université Paris-SaclayPatrick Breheny - University of IowaWilliam B Titlow - University of KentuckyHiroaki Matsunami - Duke UniversityTimothy S McClintock - University of Kentucky
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Chemical senses, Vol.50, bjaf041
- DOI
- 10.1093/chemse/bjaf041
- PMID
- 41027018
- PMCID
- PMC12527250
- NLM abbreviation
- Chem Senses
- ISSN
- 0379-864X
- eISSN
- 1464-3553
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Grant note
- National Institutes of Health (NIH): R01DC014468, R01DC020353, K99DC018333 National Science Foundation: 2014217
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants R01DC014468 (TSM), R01DC020353 (HM), and K99DC018333 (CAdM). HM acknowledges support from National Science Foundation grant 2014217.
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 09/30/2025
- Date published
- 01/22/2025
- Academic Unit
- Biostatistics
- Record Identifier
- 9984969238602771
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