Genes/genetics odors

Mombaerts P. (1999). Odorant receptor genes in humans. Curr Opin Genet Dev 9, 315-320. 

Here is a bit of a complication there is a lot of individual variation in the sense of human olfaction. Not everything smells the same to everyone. This holds both for the intensity of the perceived smeU as well as for its quality pleasant, floral, skunky, sweaty, or no odor at all. Andreas Keller has recently demonstrated that some significant part of this individual variation in the sense of smell derives from genetic variation in human odorant genes. Specifically, two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), leading to two amino acid substitutions in an odorant receptor, have dramatic affects on the perception of the odor of androstenone, a steroid derived from testosterone. 

Mombaerts, P. (2001) The human repertoire of odorant receptor genes and pseudogenes. Annu. Rev. Genomics Hum. Genet. 2, 493-510. 

Menashe I, Man O, et al. (2003) Different noses for different people. Nat Genet 34(2) 143—4 Mombaerts P (2004) Odorant receptor gene choice in olfactory sensory neurons the one receptor-one neuron hypothesis revisited. Curr Opin Neurobiol 14(1) 31—36 Niimura Y, Nei M (2005) Evolutionary dynamics of olfactory receptor genes in fishes and tetrapods. 

Kratz E, Dugas JC, Ngai J (2002) Odorant receptor gene regulation implications from genomic organization.Trends Genet 18(1 ) 29—34... 

Rodriguez I (2004) Pheromone receptors in mammals. Horm Behav 46 219-230 Rodriguez I (2007) Odorant and pheromone receptor gene regulation in vertebrates. Curr Opin Genet Dev 17 465-470... 

Mori K, Takahashi YK, Igarashi KM, Yamaguchi M (2006) Maps of odorant molecular features in the mammalian olfactory bulb. Physiol Rev 86 409 133 Morita Y, Finger TE (1998) Differential projections of ciliated and microvillous olfactory receptor cells in the catfish, Ictalurus punctatus. J Comp Neurol 398 539-550 Nasevisius A, Ekker SC (2000) Effective targeted gene knockdown in zebrafish. Nat Genet 26 216-220... 

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