Insect odorant receptors: channeling scent.

Ha, Tal Soo; Smith, Dean P · Cell · 2008

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Odorant detection in insects involves heterodimers between an odorant receptor (OR) and a conserved seven-transmembrane protein called Or83b, but the exact mechanism of OR signal transduction is unclear. Two recent studies in Nature (Sato et al., 2008; Wicher et al., 2008) now reveal that these OR-Or83b heterodimers form odorant-gated ion channels, revealing a surprising new mode of olfactory transduction.

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