Olfactory receptors and the mechanism of odor perception
نویسندگان
چکیده
The olfactory system plays one of the key roles in the lives of humans and animals. It can detect thousands of different odor molecules through a large family of olfactory receptors (ORs), of a diverse protein sequence, which are located in olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) in the olfactory epithelium in the nose of humans, and in the vomeronasal organ in animals. The OR family is comprised of 172 subfamilies, whose members have related protein sequences and are encoded by a single chromosomal locus. The human receptor gene family includes 339 intact receptor genes and 297 receptor pseudogenes, unevenly distributed among 51 different loci on 21 human chromosomes. Different parts of the genome may be involved in the detection of different types of structural odorants.
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