Single sensillum recordings in the insects Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae.

摘要: The sense of smell is essential for insects to find foods, mates, predators, and oviposition sites3. Insect olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) are enclosed in hairs called sensilla, which cover the surface organs. each sensillum covered with tiny pores, through odorants pass dissolve a fluid lymph, bathes dendrites OSNs housed given sensillum. OSN express odorant receptor (OR) proteins, function as odor-gated ion channels4, 5. interaction ORs either increases or decreases basal firing rate OSN. This neuronal activity form action potentials embodies first representation quality, intensity, temporal characteristics odorant6, 7. Given easy access these hairs, it possible perform extracellular recordings from single by introducing recording electrode into while reference placed lymph eye body insect. In Drosophila, sensilla house between one four OSNs, but typically displays characteristic spike amplitude. Spike sorting techniques make assign spiking responses individual OSNs. (SSR) technique monitors difference potential electrical spikes that generated on OSNs1, 2, 8. Changes number response represent cellular basis odor coding insects. Here, we describe preparation method currently used our lab SSR Drosophila melanogaster Anopheles gambiae, show representative traces induced sensillum-specific manner.