Molecular Genetics and Physiology of Olfaction

Molecular recognition underlies all biological processes.  A fundamental question in biology is how systems, from individual proteins to organisms, recognize molecular structure.  The vertebrate olfactory system is a remarkable molecular recognition device.  Animals can detect odorous chemicals at extremely low concentrations, and can discriminate among an enormous number of structurally diverse molecules.  The long-term goal of our work is to understand the genetic and cellular mechanisms used by the nervous system to encode molecular information.

Olfactory stimuli are detected by an array of sensory neurons in the nasal cavity, each of which expresses a single odorant receptor gene.  Neurons expressing the same receptor make specific connections to discrete structures (called glomeruli) in the olfactory bulb.  In this way, the odorant receptor repertoire (~1000 genes in the mouse) is mapped onto the array of glomeruli in the brain.  Our laboratory uses a combination of mouse genetics, functional imaging and electrophysiology to investigate how the receptor map forms, how the organization of glomeruli relates to the structure of chemical stimuli, and how genetically-defined populations of sensory neurons contribute to the perception of chemical structure.

e-mail Dr. Bozza
ph: 847.467.2870
fax: 847.491.5211

• Feinstein, P., Bozza, T., Rodriguez, I., Vassalli, A., and Mombaerts, P. (2004). Axon guidance of mouse olfactory sensory neurons by odorant receptors and the beta2 adrenergic receptor. Cell 117, 833-846.

• Bozza, T., Feinstein, P., Zheng, C., and Mombaerts, P. (2002). Odorant receptor expression defines functional units in the mouse olfactory system. Journal of Neuroscience 22, 3033-3043.

• Zheng, C., Feinstein, P., Bozza, T., Rodriguez, I., and Mombaerts, P. (2000). Peripheral olfactory projections are differentially affected in mice deficient in a cyclic nucleotide-gated channel subunit. Neuron 26, 81-91.