City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research Hunter College 2018 Single olfactory receptors set odor detection thresholds Adam Dewan Northwestern University Annika Cichy Northwestern University Jingji Zhang Northwestern University Kayla Miguel Northwestern University Paul Feinstein CUNY Hunter College See next page for additional authors How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_pubs/550 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] Authors Adam Dewan, Annika Cichy, Jingji Zhang, Kayla Miguel, Paul Feinstein, Dmitry Rinberg, and Thomas Bozza This article is available at CUNY Academic Works: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_pubs/550 ARTICLE DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-05129-0 OPEN Single olfactory receptors set odor detection thresholds Adam Dewan1, Annika Cichy1, Jingji Zhang1, Kayla Miguel1, Paul Feinstein2, Dmitry Rinberg3 & Thomas Bozza 1 In many species, survival depends on olfaction, yet the mechanisms that underlie olfactory sensitivity are not well understood. Here we examine how a conserved subset of olfactory receptors, the trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs), determine odor detection fi 1234567890():,; thresholds of mice to amines. We nd that deleting all TAARs, or even single TAARs, results in significant odor detection deficits. This finding is not limited to TAARs, as the deletion of a canonical odorant receptor reduced behavioral sensitivity to its preferred ligand. Remarkably, behavioral threshold is set solely by the most sensitive receptor, with no contribution from other highly sensitive receptors.