Rare event of histone demethylation can initiate singular gene expression of olfactory receptors

Abstract

In mammals, the sense of odors relies on the peculiar expression pattern of olfactory receptors (ORs). Each single neuron chooses one, and only one, from all ∼1,400 OR genes that are present in a mouse genome. In neurobiology, a long-standing mystery is how such singularity can be achieved. We show theoretically that a simple kinetic scheme of OR activation followed by feedback can be solely responsible for the observed singularity, as long as the two timescales—slow activation by epigenetic modification and fast feedback by transcriptional regulation—are well separated. Our work provides the theoretical underpinning behind the choice of ORs, and demonstrates how the nervous system utilizes the kinetics of epigenetic changes to direct neurogenesis.