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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Real-time In Vitro Monitoring of Odorant Receptor Activation by an Odorant in the Vapor Phase
Published on: April 23, 2019
Olfactory receptor sequence polymorphism within and between breeds of dogs
Sandrine Tacher1, Pascale Quignon, Maud Rimbault
1UMR 6061,Génétique et Développement CNRS-Université de Rennes 1, France.
Abstract:
Olfactory receptors, to which odorant molecules specifically bind, are encoded by the largest gene family yet identified in the mammalian genome. We investigated additional polymorphism due to the possible existence of multiple alleles dispersed in different dog breeds by carrying out a survey of the sequences of 16 olfactory receptor genes in a sample of 95 dogs of 20 different breeds. The level of polymorphism was high--all genes were found to have allelic variants--leading to amino acid changes and pseudogenization of some alleles in a number of cases. This preliminary study also revealed that some alleles are breed specific (or rare in the dog population), with some representing the major allele in the breeds concerned.
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