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closeCould similar mechanisms work in other systems?
Posted by carrock on 28 Jan 2013 at 20:52 GMT
I find this a very interesting piece of work - one that addresses the issue of sample purity and observer differences more thoroughly than earlier studies.
There are an awful lot of olfaction receptors - presumably the shape vs vibration (vs 'other') debate is now more mature than being polarised to one or the other? Would you speculate about differential binding of these molecules to individual families of receptor? Are there any in vitro systems that could assess this?
Can 7tm receptors such as these actually 'fire' at the frequencies associated with the vibrational modes of these molecules? That would be very interesting for considering the diverse responses to chemokines (which also bind 7tm receptors) in the immune system, and although for structurally different receptors, perhaps inform us about the way in which responses to allergens are so unusual (in terms of minimal exposure triggering very large adverse effects, in a system where possession of the ligand binding molecule (IgE) only partially accounts for the response).
RE: Could similar mechanisms work in other systems?
lucaturin replied to carrock on 30 Jan 2013 at 09:18 GMT
The question of whether other GPCRs share any part of this mechanism with olfactory ones remains open and highly speculative at this point.
RE: RE: Could similar mechanisms work in other systems?
carrock replied to lucaturin on 30 Jan 2013 at 19:57 GMT
Fair enough, but there's 900-odd varieties of of them up your nose, one would have thought they would probably be doing something.
RE: RE: RE: Could similar mechanisms work in other systems?
lucaturin replied to carrock on 30 Jan 2013 at 20:48 GMT
Maybe I misunderstood your question: they're definitely doing something, but whether that something applies in part or entirely to other GPCR receptors unrelated to olfaction is unclear.