Pavan Barbara, Capuzzo Antonio, Dalpiaz Alessandro
Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy.
Drug Discov Today. 2017 Jul;22(7):1123-1130. doi: 10.1016/j.drudis.2017.05.003. Epub 2017 May 19.
Several olfactory receptors (ORs) have been characterized outside the olfactory neuroepithelium in neuronal and non-neuronal tissues, where they were implicated in the recognition of diverse chemical signals. ORs have been found to regulate melanogenesis in skin melanocytes, and OR expression has been found in the human brain nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurons, where production of melanin occurs as neuromelanin and can change with age; OR expression is downregulated in Parkinson's disease. Therefore, we propose several odorants as new functional ligands to ORs expressed in non-olfactory pigmented cells as dopaminergic neurons and melanocytes, where, by acting on cAMP-induced melanin production, they could help to counteract melanogenic and neurodegenerative dysfunctions, including melanoma and Parkinson's disease.
在神经元和非神经元组织中，已经在嗅觉神经上皮之外鉴定出几种嗅觉受体（OR），它们参与识别多种化学信号。已发现OR可调节皮肤黑素细胞中的黑色素生成，并且在人脑黑质纹状体多巴胺能神经元中发现了OR表达，在该神经元中黑色素以神经黑色素的形式产生，并且会随年龄变化；在帕金森病中OR表达下调。因此，我们提出几种气味剂作为非嗅觉色素细胞（如多巴胺能神经元和黑素细胞）中表达的OR的新功能配体，通过作用于cAMP诱导的黑色素生成，它们可能有助于对抗黑色素生成和神经退行性疾病功能障碍，包括黑色素瘤和帕金森病。
