›› 2009, Vol. 52 ›› Issue (7): 799-807.

• 研究论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

果蝇嗅觉分子机理研究进展

吴仲南, 邹志华, 杜永均   

  • 出版日期:2009-07-20 发布日期:2009-07-20
  • 通讯作者: 杜永均

Progress in molecular mechanism of olfaction in Drosophila melanogaster

  • Online:2009-07-20 Published:2009-07-20

摘要: 黑腹果蝇Drosophila melanogaster是生物学研究的重要模式生物,也是探索研究生物体嗅觉奥秘的理想材料。近年来,由于分子生物学技术在神经科学领域的广泛应用,黑腹果蝇嗅觉机理研究取得了许多重大突破, 对气味分子受体及其识别机理、 嗅觉神经电信号的产生和传递、嗅觉信息的加工、编码以及记忆等方面都有了深入的了解。研究表明, 果蝇约1 300个嗅神经元(olfactory receptor neurons, ORNs)共表达62种不同的气味受体蛋白(olfactory receptor proteins, ORs), 用以检测和识别其所感受的所有化学气味分子。许多OR所识别的气味分子配体已鉴定出来,普通的气味(如水果的气味)由数种不同的OR组合来识别,而信息素(pheromone)分子则由单种特定的OR来检测。气味信息在嗅神经元内转换成神经电信号,嗅觉电信号沿嗅神经元的轴突传递到触角叶, 再经投射神经元(projection neurons, PNs)将信息送至高级中枢如蘑菇体(mushroom body, MB)和侧角(lateral horn, LH),最终引发行为反应。在黑腹果蝇嗅觉信息传递通路中,某些蛋白如Dock,N-cadherin,Fruitless等起着重要作用,缺失这些蛋白会导致嗅觉异常。本文对这些研究进展作一综述。

关键词: 果蝇, 嗅觉机理, 嗅觉编码, 嗅觉相关蛋白, 嗅觉受体

Abstract: Drosophila melanogaster is one of the most popular animal models for biological research, especially for studies on olfaction. Recent advancement in Drosophila olfactory research uncovered much about the mechanisms underlying odor detection and discrimination, sensory transduction, coding, olfactory memory, etc. It showed that~1 300 Drosophila olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) express a total of 62 different olfactory receptor proteins (ORs) to detect all chemical molecules a fly senses. The odorant ligands of many Drosophila ORs have been elucidated: General odors, such as fruit odors, are encoded by combinations of different ORs; whereas pheromones that elicit mating and social interactions are encoded by single specific OR. Odor information is transformed into electrical neural signal in ORN, then the signal is relayed to the antennal lobe (AL) along the axon of ORN, and further the signal is relayed to the mushroom body (MB) and lateral horn (LH) by the projection neurons (PNs). Some proteins such as Dock, Ncadherin, and Fruitless play crucial roles in the physiology of Drosophila olfaction; loss of these proteins will lead to olfactory deficiencies. In this article we reviewed the major progress made in recent years.