Master gene found for insect smell
Bugs use their sense of smell to find food and mates and to avoid predators. New research suggests that a single gene may be behind all that smelling in a broad range of insect species.
Many insects detect scents through odor receptors along their antennae. When a particular scent molecule matches the shape of an odor receptor, as a key fits in a lock, nerves transmit information about that smell to the brain.
The proteins that make up odor receptors can vary significantly, giving different smelling capabilities even to individual insects within a species. Despite this variability, Leslie Vosshall and her colleagues of Rockefeller University in New York City reported last year that the protein encoded by a single odor-receptor gene, known as Or83b, works in conjunction with almost every odor receptor in fruit flies. When the scientists engineered flies that lacked the gene, the insects were unable to smell.