Coppola David M
Department of Biology, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, Virginia, 23005, USA.
Bioessays. 2022 Mar;44(3):e2100263. doi: 10.1002/bies.202100263. Epub 2022 Jan 5.
Herein, I discuss the enduring mystery of the receptor layout in the vertebrate olfactory system. Since the awarding of the 2004 Nobel Prize to Axel and Buck for their discovery of the gene family that encodes olfactory receptors, our field has enjoyed a golden era. Despite this Renaissance, an answer to one of the most fundamental questions for any sensory system-what is the anatomical logic of its receptor array?-eludes us, still, for olfaction! Indeed, the only widely debated hypothesis, finding its origins in the musing of another Nobel laureate Sir Edgar Adrian, has it that the vertebrate nose organizes its receptors according to the "sorptive" properties of their ligands. This idea, known as the "sorption" or "chromatography" hypothesis, enjoys considerable support despite being controversial. Here, I review the history of the hypothesis-its rises and falls-and discuss the latest data and future prospects for this perennial idea whose history I liken to the mythical Phoenix.
在此，我将探讨脊椎动物嗅觉系统中受体布局这一长久以来的谜团。自2004年阿克塞尔和巴克因发现编码嗅觉受体的基因家族而获得诺贝尔奖以来，我们这个领域迎来了一个黄金时代。尽管出现了这种复兴局面，但对于任何感觉系统来说，最基本的问题之一——其受体阵列的解剖学逻辑是什么？——仍然没有答案，嗅觉领域依然如此！事实上，唯一广受争议的假说是源于另一位诺贝尔奖获得者埃德加·阿德里安爵士的思考，即脊椎动物的鼻子根据其配体的“吸附”特性来组织其受体。这个被称为“吸附”或“色谱”假说的观点，尽管存在争议，但仍得到了相当多的支持。在此，我回顾该假说的历史——它的兴衰——并讨论这个长期存在的观点的最新数据和未来前景，我将其历史比作神话中的凤凰。
