Expression of Golf in the rat placenta: Possible implication in olfactory receptor transduction

Olfactory receptors are G-protein coupled receptors and are encoded by an extremely large and diverse family of genes in mammals. There is increasing evidence that olfactory receptors are widely distributed in many organs, suggesting that olfactory receptors do not only recognize airborne odorants but also play important roles in chemotaxis or organ construction in embryo. In this study, we investigated whether olfactory receptors and their transduction molecule, Golf are expressed in the rat placenta. By RT-PCR, we identified 11 different olfactory receptor genes, which are all members of class II, in the rat placenta cDNAs, and our results suggested that particular members of the olfactory receptor gene family might be preferentially expressed in the placenta. By western blot analysis, we demonstrated that Golf protein is expressed in the placenta and its expression levels are developmentally regulated. We found that Golf immunoreactivity is exclusively localized to giant cell trophoblasts and spongiotrophoblast cells. These findings raised a possibility that a particular subset of olfactory receptors might be coupled with Golf and function in giant cell trophoblasts and spongiotrophoblast cells.