Courtesy of Peter Mombaerts
Rarely do scientific studies claim that something is not the case. Rarer still do negative results appear in top-tier journals. Yet two recent papers in
The olfactory system is often compared to the immune system. The key cell types in each system, the olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) and the lymphocyte, can detect a wide variety of chemicals, both natural and synthetic. Chemical recognition by these cells is specific and sensitive, so many odorant receptors (ORs) 3 and antigen receptors are needed to cover the spectrum of chemical structures.
It has been well established that each B or T lymphocyte expresses a single antigen receptor – an antibody or T-cell receptor. Analogously, each vertebrate OSN is thought to express a single OR gene. Lymphocytes restrict antigen receptor gene expression by genome modification, and many believed that OSNs did ...
