鱼类嗅觉受体基因研究进展

嗅觉是鱼类感知外界环境的重要器官,参与觅食、定位、避敌以及生殖洄游等行为。嗅觉功能基于嗅觉信号通路并由嗅觉受体蛋白识别外界环境中的气味分子而实现。嗅觉受体基因编码G蛋白偶联受体蛋白,在脊椎动物中已发现的嗅觉受体基因有5个家族,即主嗅觉受体基因(MOR)、犁鼻器Ⅰ型受体基因(V1R/ORA)、犁鼻器Ⅱ型受体基因(V2R/OlfC)、痕量胺相关受体基因(TAAR)和甲酰基肽受体基因(FPR)。鱼类占脊椎动物所有种类的50%以上,近年有关鱼类嗅觉受体基因的研究越来越多,新的发现不断涌现,但目前国内的相关文献甚少。本文总结了鱼类嗅觉受体基因家族的研究进展,整理了研究中遇到的有关问题和相应对策,并对研究前景作了展望,旨在为国内鱼类嗅觉受体基因的研究提供参考资料。

Research progress of olfactory receptor genes in fishes

Olfaction is essential for fish to detect odorant elements in environment.The sense of smell plays an important role in locating food,navigating,detecting predators,and spawning migration.The olfactory function is produced by the olfactory transduction pathway and activated by the olfactory receptors through binding of odorant elements.In vertebrates,the olfactory receptor gene families are recently classified into five families,the main olfactory receptor(MOR),vomeronasal type-1 receptor(V1R/ORA),vomeronasal type-2 receptor(V2R/OlfC),trace amine-associated receptor(TAAR)and formyl peptide receptor(FPR).More than 50% of vertebrates are fishes,which own important biological status.However,there are few articles published in this field in China,although more and more attention has been focused and many findings have been reported.This review describes the recent advance in studying the five olfactory receptor gene families in fishes,and makes a discussion and a summary of the problems encountered during the research,as well as the corresponding measures to resolve them.Finally we open an outlook to the further study in olfactory receptor genes.We aim to provide references for the research on olfactory receptors of fish in China.