The Nature piece (347:184-7, Sept. 13, 1990) moves researchers closer to isolating the elusive odor receptor. The article in Science (249:1166-8, Sept. 7, 1990) helps quell a controversy about whether olfaction transduction involves one or two pathways; the results show that it follows two. "Different odors depend on different pathways," says Randall Reed, an associate professor of molecular biology and genetics at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and one of the authors of the Nature paper. "Pleasant ones seem to prefer one way, unpleasant ones, the other."
Reed and his group were the first to clone and sequence an ion channel in an olfactory neuron. His results indicate that even a third pathway may be activated in olfaction. "This is the first evidence that cGMP [cyclic guanosine monophosphate, a chemical mediator in the cell] may play a role in olfaction," says Reed.
Reed hopes that the ion channel he's cloned ...
