TL;DR: Although ORs in Drosophila melanogaster respond to multiple odorants and seem to work in combinatorial code involving both periphery and antennal lobes, reception of sex pheromones by moth ORs suggests that their labeled lines rely heavily on selectivity at the periphery.
Abstract: Our knowledge of the molecular basis of odorant reception in insects has grown exponentially over the past decade. Odorant receptors (ORs) from moths, fruit flies, mosquitoes, and the honey bees have been deorphanized, odorant-degrading enzymes (ODEs) have been isolated, and the functions of odorant-binding proteins (OBPs) have been unveiled. OBPs contribute to the sensitivity of the olfactory system by transporting odorants through the sensillar lymph, but there are competing hypotheses on how they act at the end of the journey. A few ODEs that have been demonstrated to degrade odorants rapidly may act in signal inactivation alone or in combination with other molecular traps. Although ORs in Drosophila melanogaster respond to multiple odorants and seem to work in combinatorial code involving both periphery and antennal lobes, reception of sex pheromones by moth ORs suggests that their labeled lines rely heavily on selectivity at the periphery.
TL;DR: A novel search algorithm is developed, used to search the Drosophila genomic sequence database, and it is shown that expression is restricted to subsets of olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) for a number of these genes.
TL;DR: A draft sequence of the genome of Aedes aegypti, the primary vector for yellow fever and dengue fever, which at approximately 1376 million base pairs is about 5 times the size of the genomes of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae was presented in this paper.
Abstract: We present a draft sequence of the genome of Aedes aegypti, the primary vector for yellow fever and dengue fever, which at approximately 1376 million base pairs is about 5 times the size of the genome of the malaria vector Anopheles gambiae. Nearly 50% of the Ae. aegypti genome consists of transposable elements. These contribute to a factor of approximately 4 to 6 increase in average gene length and in sizes of intergenic regions relative to An. gambiae and Drosophila melanogaster. Nonetheless, chromosomal synteny is generally maintained among all three insects, although conservation of orthologous gene order is higher (by a factor of approximately 2) between the mosquito species than between either of them and the fruit fly. An increase in genes encoding odorant binding, cytochrome P450, and cuticle domains relative to An. gambiae suggests that members of these protein families underpin some of the biological differences between the two mosquito species.
TL;DR: The data provide a mechanistic basis by which an odorant-stimulated increase in cyclic nucleotide concentration could lead to an increase in membrane conductance and therefore, to membrane depolarization and suggest considerable conservation of sensory transduction mechanisms.
Abstract: Olfactory transduction is thought to be initiated by the binding of odorants to specific receptor proteins in the cilia of olfactory receptor cells (reviewed in refs 1–3). The mechanism by which odorant binding could initiate membrane depolarization is unknown, but the recent discovery of an odorant-stimulated adenylate cyclase in purified olfactory cilia4,5 suggests that cyclic AMP may serve as an intracellular messenger for olfactory transduction. If so, then there might be a conductance in the ciliary plasma membrane which is controlled by cAMP. Here we report that excised patches of ciliary plasma membrane, obtained from dissociated receptor cells, contain a conductance which is gated directly by cAMP. This conductance resembles the cyclic GMP-gated conductance that mediates phototransduction in rod and cone outer segments6,7, but differs in that it is activated by both cAMP and cGMP. Our data provide a mechanistic basis by which an odorant-stimulated increase in cyclic nucleotide concentration could lead to an increase in membrane conductance and therefore, to membrane depolarization. These data suggest a remarkable similarity between the mechanisms of olfactory and visual transduction and indicate considerable conservation of sensory transduction mechanisms.
TL;DR: It is shown that the Drosophila OBP lush is completely devoid of evoked activity to the pheromone 11-cis vaccenyl acetate (VA), revealing that this binding protein is absolutely required for activation of pherOMone-sensitive chemosensory neurons.