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Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Identification of specific ligands for orphan olfactory receptors. G protein-dependent agonism and antagonism of odorants.

Olfactory receptors are the largest group of orphan G protein-coupled receptors with an infinitely small number of agonists identified out of thousands of odorants. The de-orphaning of olfactory receptor (OR) is complicated by its combinatorial odorant coding and thus requires large scale odorant and receptor screening and establishing receptor-specific odorant profiles. Here, we report on the stable reconstitution of OR-specific signaling in HeLa/Olf cells via G protein alphaolf and adenylyl cyclase type-III to the Ca2+ influx- mediating olfactory cyclic nucleotide-gated CNGA2 channel. We demonstrate the central role of Galphaolf in odorant-specific signaling out of OR. The employment of the non-typical G protein alpha15 dramatically altered the odorant specificities of 3 of 7 receptors that had been characterized previously by different groups. We further show for two OR that an odorant may be an agonist or antagonist, depending on the G protein used. HeLa/Olf cells proved suitable for high-throughput screening in fluorescence-imaging plate reader experiments, resulting in the de-orphaning of two new OR for the odorant (-)citronellal from an expression library of 93 receptors. To demonstrate the G protein dependence of its odorant response pattern, we screened the most sensitive (-)citronellal receptor Olfr43 versus 94 odorants simultaneously in the presence of Galpha15 or Galphaolf. We finally established an EC50-ranking odorant profile for Olfr43 in HeLa/Olf cells. In summary, we conclude that, in heterologous systems, odorants may function as agonists or antagonists, depending on the G protein used. HeLa/Olf cells provide an olfactory model system for functional expression and de-orphaning of OR.[1]

References

  1. Identification of specific ligands for orphan olfactory receptors. G protein-dependent agonism and antagonism of odorants. Shirokova, E., Schmiedeberg, K., Bedner, P., Niessen, H., Willecke, K., Raguse, J.D., Meyerhof, W., Krautwurst, D. J. Biol. Chem. (2005) [Pubmed]
 
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