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Tan, Taralyn

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Taralyn

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Tan, Taralyn
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    Blueprints for Smell: Defining the Architecture of the Necklace Olfactory System
    (2016-09-14) Tan, Taralyn; Murthy, Venkatesh; Do, Michael; Schwob, James
    Animals must extract salient information from complex environments in order to generate adaptive behaviors. Mice have evolved multiple olfactory subsystems that enable detection and discrimination of a vast range of chemical stimuli. Although distinct olfactory subsystems detect overlapping subsets of odor space, the specific perceptual functions of each subsystem – and how subsystems interact with one another – remains largely unknown. The GC-D “necklace” olfactory subsystem detects odorants from mates, predators, and food, suggesting it may play an important role in mediating innate behaviors. However, this subsystem is also required for a specific form of olfactory social learning. Olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) of the GC-D subsystem detect odorants via molecular mechanisms distinct from those of conventional OSNs. Consistent with a specialized role in olfactory processing, the GC-D subsystem also exhibits atypical anatomical organization: GC-D OSNs are concentrated within isolated regions of the nasal epithelium, and unlike canonical OSNs – whose axons converge onto a small number of isolated foci (called glomeruli) within the olfactory bulb (OB) – GC-D neurons project axons to a “necklace” of 25-40 seemingly interconnected glomeruli that encircle the caudal OB. The neural circuitry beyond the OB that decodes information from necklace glomeruli is completely unknown. To define the organizing principles by which this subsystem processes olfactory information, we combined novel surgical approaches and an electroporation cell-labeling technique with retrograde and trans-synaptic viral reagents to trace the connectivity of the necklace glomeruli. We find that individual GC-D glomeruli are presynaptically innervated by spatially dispersed OSN populations and postsynaptically are heavily interconnected with both GC-D and other atypical glomeruli within the OB; these features define physical substrates for integration of peripheral olfactory signals both within the GC-D necklace system and between multiple olfactory subsystems. Centrally, the GC-D subsystem projects to canonical brain targets of the main (but not the accessory) olfactory system; however, it also projects to unique septal targets within the basal forebrain, in part synapsing with cholinergic neurons. The GC-D subsystem is therefore – through peripheral mechanisms to broadly sample sensory channels and privileged access to central behavioral circuits – uniquely poised to direct behavioral responses to ethologically salient cues.
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    Molecular Organization of Vomeronasal Chemoreception
    (Nature Publishing Group, 2011) Isogai, Yoh; Si, Sheng; Pont-Lezica, Lorena; Tan, Taralyn; Kapoor, Vikrant; Murthy, Venkatesh; Dulac, Catherine
    The vomeronasal organ (VNO) has a key role in mediating the social and defensive responses of many terrestrial vertebrates to species- and sex-specific chemosignals. More than 250 putative pheromone receptors have been identified in the mouse VNO, but the nature of the signals detected by individual VNO receptors has not yet been elucidated. To gain insight into the molecular logic of VNO detection leading to mating, aggression or defensive responses, we sought to uncover the response profiles of individual vomeronasal receptors to a wide range of animal cues. Here we describe the repertoire of behaviourally and physiologically relevant stimuli detected by a large number of individual vomeronasal receptors in mice, and define a global map of vomeronasal signal detection. We demonstrate that the two classes (V1R and V2R) of vomeronasal receptors use fundamentally different strategies to encode chemosensory information, and that distinct receptor subfamilies have evolved towards the specific recognition of certain animal groups or chemical structures. The association of large subsets of vomeronasal receptors with cognate, ethologically and physiologically relevant stimuli establishes the molecular foundation of vomeronasal information coding, and opens new avenues for further investigating the neural mechanisms underlying behaviour specificity.