Beyond Odor Receptors: Molecular basis of insect olfaction

超越气味受体：昆虫嗅觉的分子基础

• 批准号: 10678923
• 负责人: Karen Anne Menuz
• 金额: $ 40.25万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT STORRS
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10678923
• 关键词: Animal Behavior; Behavior; Candidate Disease Gene; Cloning; Code; Complex; Development; Disease; Drosophila genus; Explosion; Food; Genes; Genetic; Insect Control; Insecta; Knowledge; Malaria; Mediating; Metabolic; Methods; Modality; Molecular; Neurons; Odors; Olfactory Pathways; Olfactory Receptor Neurons; Organ; Organism; Partner in relationship; Physiological; Receptor Activation; Research; Role; Sensory; Signal Transduction; Smell Perception; Source; Stereotyping; Supporting Cell; Toxin; Vertebrates; Volatilization; desensitization; model organism; receptor; receptor function; response; tool; transcriptome sequencing; transmission process

Complex organisms such as vertebrates and insects have developed specialized chemosensory organs in order to locate food, evaluate mates, and avoid toxins. The sensing of volatile odors is particularly challenging because odors are often present at low levels in turbulent plumes, yet many animal behaviors rely on the faithful coding of odor signals by olfactory receptor neurons. The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of research into olfactory systems, following the cloning of the first odor receptors. Initial research focused on understanding odor receptor function, characterizing their odor response profiles, and understanding their effects on behavior. However, many open questions remain regarding the molecular and cellular mechanisms supporting olfaction in the periphery, particularly in regards to insect olfaction. What signaling mechanisms are downstream of insect odor receptor activation? How are odors removed from the peri-neuronal space? What contribution do non- neuronal support cells make to olfactory neuron activity? How are the support cells of olfactory sensilla similar or different than those in sensilla that mediate other sensory modalities? My lab seeks answers for these questions in the Drosophila antenna, their primary olfactory organ. This versatile model organism is advantageous for such studies because we can exploit the large number of available genetic tools and existing knowledge on its stereotyped receptor and neuronal organization. Here we propose to study the functions of several candidate genes that have arisen from our recent computational screen, and may provide answers to several outstanding questions in field olfaction field as described above. One project centers on several highly conserved antennal-enriched signaling genes and their putative roles in amplification and desensitization downstream of odor receptor activation. Two additional projects focus on the interactions between non-neuronal support cells and the signaling of olfactory neurons. One investigates the role of support cells in odor degradation using candidate metabolic genes that arose from our screen and an RNASeq-based method to identify new candidates. We will also elucidate the potential differences in function between the major support cell classes, which are found not only in olfactory sensilla but also in sensilla that mediate other physiological functions.

脊椎动物和昆虫等复杂生物已经发展出专门的化学感受器官， 寻找食物评估配偶避免毒素挥发性气味的感测特别具有挑战性，因为 在湍流羽流中，气味通常处于低水平，但许多动物的行为依赖于忠实的编码 嗅觉受体神经元发出的气味信号。在过去的几十年里， 在克隆第一个气味受体之后，最初的研究集中在理解 气味受体功能，描述他们的气味反应概况，并了解他们对行为的影响。 然而，许多悬而未决的问题仍然是关于分子和细胞机制支持嗅觉， 特别是昆虫的嗅觉。昆虫的下游信号机制是什么 气味受体激活？如何从神经元周围空间去除气味？什么贡献做非- 神经元支持细胞对嗅觉神经元活动的影响嗅觉感受器的支持细胞是如何相似的 还是与感受器中介导其他感觉方式的那些不同？我的实验室正在寻找这些问题的答案 果蝇的主要嗅觉器官触角中的问题。这种多功能模式生物是 这对这些研究是有利的，因为我们可以利用大量可用的遗传工具和现有的 了解其定型受体和神经元组织。 在这里，我们建议研究几个候选基因的功能，这些基因是从我们最近的研究中产生的。 计算屏幕，并可能提供答案，在现场嗅觉领域的几个悬而未决的问题， 上面描述一个项目集中在几个高度保守的触角丰富的信号基因和他们的 在气味受体激活的下游放大和脱敏中的假定作用。两个附加 项目集中在非神经支持细胞和嗅觉神经元信号之间的相互作用。 其中一个研究了支持细胞在气味降解中的作用，使用的候选代谢基因来自 我们的筛选和基于RNASeq的方法来识别新的候选人。我们还将阐明 主要支持细胞类别之间的功能差异，不仅在嗅觉感受器中发现， 也存在于介导其他生理功能的感受器中。