Presentation Details
| Making sense of scents: structural insights into odor detection Navid Paknejad, Xiao Fan, Dragana Nesic, Beth Graczyk, Vanessa Ruta. Rockefeller University/HHMI |
Abstract
Olfactory systems must detect and discriminate an enormous diversity of chemicals in the environment. To contend with this challenge, diverse species from humans to insects, have converged on a common strategy in which odor identity is encoded through the combinatorial activation of large families of olfactory receptors, thus allowing a finite number of receptors to detect an almost infinite chemical world. Our lab has been using the insect olfactory system as a window into the structural logic of odor detection. Insects rely on an enormous and highly divergent family of odorant-gated ion channels which have we have been using as an inroad to gain insight into the structural logic of odorant detection. I will discuss recent work that shed light on the architecture, function, and evolution of this receptor family and how they confer insects with the ability to navigate a complex chemical world.
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No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author.