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HERE IT IS!! My preprint with @meg_younger @pollyp1 and our team is live. Mosquitoes break all our favorite rules of olfactory system organization, and we show how this might affect how they find and bite humans! (1/n) https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.07.368720v1
First, how did we *think* insect olfaction works? For decades, all data pointed to each olfactory neuron expressing one chemosensory receptor, and all neurons expressing the same receptor project axons to the same glomerulus in the brain. (2/n)
This organization allows sensory neurons and the brain to segregate olfactory info and utilize combinatorial coding to interpret odor. I was entranced by this organization when I started my PhD. I was so young, if only I knew what was to come! (3/n)
Mosquitoes express multiple chemosensory receptors in each neuron. We were so shocked that we show this three ways: antibody staining, RNA in situ, and with the first use of split-QF intersectional genetics (thanks @Lena_Riab!!) (4/n)
If multiple receptors are functional in each neuron, it would mean that olfactory neurons may be able to respond to multiple classes of olfactory ligands. We show with GCaMP imaging that this is true!
Does this matter for the mosquito’s most important task, biting people? We think yes! We show CO2 neurons express multiple receptors. When we knock out the CO2 receptor, we can replace CO2 with a volatile amine to enhance attraction. Boom! (6/n)
This points to redundancy in the odor code. We think this may contribute to how hard it has been to stop mosquitoes from biting people. We’ve knocked out whole families of olfactory receptors and use repellants, but mosquitoes still find a way.
Check out our preprint for more details, and we welcome feedback!! (8/n)
This wouldn't have been possible without @meg_younger, my incredible co-first author, and our team @maybeunoriginal @GongZhongyan @BenMatthewsUBC, Zach Gilbert, Saher Rahiel, and of course @pollyp1, our mentor and chief cheerleader.
AND! Do not sleep on this work from @flyknows, Darya Task, @HongjieLi5, @AliVulpe and others showing widespread co-expression in Drosophila! This truly blows up everything we knew about insect olfaction. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.07.355651v1.article-metrics (10/n)
Last thing: all my text and figures were all generated while listening to Bittersweet Symphony on repeat, so if you'd like to experience this work as it was originally intended, stream Cruel Intentions and read as Reese drives away in the Roadster. (11/11)
