Zhu Guoli, Wang Liangjiang, Tang Wenqiao, Wang Xiaomei, Wang Cong
College of Fisheries and Life Science, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China.
Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, Clemson University, Clemson, SC USA.
Genes Genomics. 2017;39(5):521-532. doi: 10.1007/s13258-017-0517-8. Epub 2017 Feb 23.
Olfaction is essential for fish to detect odorant elements in the environment and plays a critical role in navigating, locating food and detecting predators. Olfactory function is produced by the olfactory transduction pathway and is activated by olfactory receptors (ORs) through the binding of odorant elements. Recently, four types of olfactory receptors have been identified in vertebrate olfactory epithelium, including main odorant receptors (MORs), vomeronasal type receptors (VRs), trace-amine associated receptors (TAARs) and formyl peptide receptors (FPRs). It has been hypothesized that migratory fish, which have the ability to perform spawning migration, use olfactory cues to return to natal rivers. Therefore, obtaining OR genes from migratory fish will provide a resource for the study of molecular mechanisms that underlie fish spawning migration behaviors. Previous studies of OR genes have mainly focused on genomic data, however little information has been gained at the transcript level. In this study, we identified the OR genes of an economically important commercial fish through searching for olfactory epithelium transcriptomes. A total of 142 candidate MOR, 52 V2R/OlfC, 32 TAAR and two FPR putative genes were identified. In addition, through genomic analysis we identified several MOR genes containing introns, which is unusual for vertebrate MOR genes. The transcriptome-scale mining strategy proved to be fruitful in identifying large sets of OR genes from species whose genome information is unavailable. Our findings lay the foundation for further research into the possible molecular mechanisms underlying the spawning migration behavior in .
嗅觉对于鱼类检测环境中的气味分子至关重要，在导航、寻找食物和察觉捕食者方面发挥着关键作用。嗅觉功能由嗅觉转导通路产生，并通过气味分子与嗅觉受体（ORs）的结合而被激活。最近，在脊椎动物嗅觉上皮中已鉴定出四种类型的嗅觉受体，包括主要气味受体（MORs）、犁鼻器型受体（VRs）、痕量胺相关受体（TAARs）和甲酰肽受体（FPRs）。据推测，具有产卵洄游能力的洄游鱼类利用嗅觉线索返回其出生的河流。因此，从洄游鱼类中获取OR基因将为研究鱼类产卵洄游行为背后的分子机制提供资源。先前对OR基因的研究主要集中在基因组数据上，然而在转录水平上获得的信息很少。在本研究中，我们通过搜索嗅觉上皮转录组鉴定了一种具有重要经济价值的商业鱼类的OR基因。总共鉴定出142个候选MOR、52个V2R/OlfC、32个TAAR和两个FPR推定基因。此外，通过基因组分析，我们鉴定出了几个含有内含子的MOR基因，这在脊椎动物MOR基因中并不常见。转录组规模的挖掘策略在从基因组信息不可用的物种中鉴定大量OR基因方面被证明是富有成效的。我们的研究结果为进一步研究[具体鱼类名称]产卵洄游行为背后可能的分子机制奠定了基础。
