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Updated: Jul 7, 2026

Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay
Published on: October 2, 2017
Stimulation of human olfactory receptor 17-40 with odorants probed by surface plasmon resonance
Irina Benilova1, Vladimir I Chegel, Yuri V Ushenin
1Laboratoire Ampère, Ecole Centrale de Lyon, 36 Avenue Guy de Collongue, 69134, Ecully Cedex, France. i_skry@yahoo.com
Abstract:
We report here the results of human olfactory receptor (OR) 17-40 stimulation with some odorants probed by means of the double-channel surface plasmon resonance platform NanoSPR-6. OR 17-40 tagged with N-terminal cmyc sequence was heterologously co-expressed with Galpha(olf) protein in yeast, and receptor-carrying nanosomes were prepared from yeast membrane fraction. Then, receptors were specifically captured via anti-cmyc antibody attached to the gold-coated substrate in orientated or random way. Measurement of odorants effects were carried out in the presence of GTP-gamma-S in differential mode in order to compensate bulk changes of refractive index. For the first time, biosensing efficiency of olfactory films was discussed in terms of their thickness and Galpha(olf) accessibility to GTP-gamma-S. Bell-shaped response profile with two maxima (near 1 nM and near 1 microM) was established for helional, which is documented as highly specific agonist of OR 17-40. Unrelated odorant heptanal used as control, did not evoke significant variations of differential signal.
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