Nouveaux résultats de recherches effectuées dans notre département publiés dans NATURE

Ivan Rodriguez and his team identify a new family of olfactory receptors sensitive to disease/inflammation-related ligands.

Mammals heavily rely on olfaction to adequately interact with each other and with their environment. It was thought that the molecular tools available to mammals to identify odorants and pheromones was limited to four chemoreceptor families . We found that a novel group of receptors, the formyl peptide receptor-related proteins, are also expressed by olfactory sensory neurons. In vitro expression of mouse formyl receptors-like provides sensitivity to disease/inflammation-related ligands. Olfactory neurons respond to the same molecules, which therefore represent a new class of agonists. Taken together, these results suggest that formyl receptor-like proteins play an olfactory function associated with the identification of pathogens, or of pathogenic states.

• Pr Ivan Rodriguez laboratory
• Formyl peptide receptor-like proteins are a novel family of vomeronasal chemosensors. Riviere, S., Challet, L., Fluegge, D., Spehr, M., Rodriguez, I.. Nature. 2009 Apr 22.