におい受容の分子メカニズム : 嗅覚受容体が担う匂い識別の分子基盤

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Olfactory receptors (Ors), which comprise the largest G protein-coupled receptor family, play a pivotal role in recognizing a variety of odorants in the vertebrate olfactory system. Recent successes in functional cloning and expression of Ors facilitated construction of ligand-activity matrices of Ors. Activation of a combinatorial receptor repertoire by an odorant determines an odor quality of the odorant, while activated Ors by an odorant mixture is not simply the sum of those for its components due to OR antagonism between odorants. Mixing odorants, thereby, often results in a novel perceptual quality that is not present in each component. The recent atomic-level structure for bovine rhodopsin has provided an opportunity to elucidate a molecular basis for odorant recognition by an OR and characterize the active site of an OR.
日本生物物理学会の論文
2004-01-25