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Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants

Which properties of a molecule define its odor? This is a basic yet unanswered question regarding the olfactory system. The olfactory system of Drosophila has a repertoire of approximately 60 odorant receptors. Molecules bind to odorant receptors with different affinities and activate them with diff...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Saberi, Majid, Seyed-allaei, Hamed
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27112241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep25103
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author Saberi, Majid
Seyed-allaei, Hamed
author_facet Saberi, Majid
Seyed-allaei, Hamed
author_sort Saberi, Majid
collection PubMed
description Which properties of a molecule define its odor? This is a basic yet unanswered question regarding the olfactory system. The olfactory system of Drosophila has a repertoire of approximately 60 odorant receptors. Molecules bind to odorant receptors with different affinities and activate them with different efficacies, thus providing a combinatorial code that identifies odorants. We hypothesized that the binding affinity of an odorant-receptor pair is affected by their relative sizes. The maximum affinity can be attained when the molecular volume of an odorant matches the volume of the binding pocket. The affinity drops to zero when the sizes are too different, thus obscuring the effects of other molecular properties. We developed a mathematical formulation of this hypothesis and verified it using Drosophila data. We also predicted the volume and structural flexibility of the binding site of each odorant receptor; these features significantly differ between odorant receptors. The differences in the volumes and structural flexibilities of different odorant receptor binding sites may explain the difference in the scents of similar molecules with different sizes.
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spelling pubmed-48449922016-04-29 Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants Saberi, Majid Seyed-allaei, Hamed Sci Rep Article Which properties of a molecule define its odor? This is a basic yet unanswered question regarding the olfactory system. The olfactory system of Drosophila has a repertoire of approximately 60 odorant receptors. Molecules bind to odorant receptors with different affinities and activate them with different efficacies, thus providing a combinatorial code that identifies odorants. We hypothesized that the binding affinity of an odorant-receptor pair is affected by their relative sizes. The maximum affinity can be attained when the molecular volume of an odorant matches the volume of the binding pocket. The affinity drops to zero when the sizes are too different, thus obscuring the effects of other molecular properties. We developed a mathematical formulation of this hypothesis and verified it using Drosophila data. We also predicted the volume and structural flexibility of the binding site of each odorant receptor; these features significantly differ between odorant receptors. The differences in the volumes and structural flexibilities of different odorant receptor binding sites may explain the difference in the scents of similar molecules with different sizes. Nature Publishing Group 2016-04-26 /pmc/articles/PMC4844992/ /pubmed/27112241 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep25103 Text en Copyright © 2016, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Saberi, Majid
Seyed-allaei, Hamed
Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title_full Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title_fullStr Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title_full_unstemmed Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title_short Odorant receptors of Drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
title_sort odorant receptors of drosophila are sensitive to the molecular volume of odorants
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844992/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27112241
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep25103
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