Project description

Chemosensation is considered to be one of the most ancient senses and has diverse function for animals.

Olfactory signalling is triggered by the a low molecular weight ligand and an olfactory receptor. At present, five families of olfactory receptor genes are known for vertebrates. The members of vomeronasal type-1 receptor (V1R) family detect pheromone molecules. They are highly abundant in and our lab has identified an orthologous small family of six V1R-related ora genes in zebrafish.ORA1 is considered to be the most basal representative of the tetrapod V1R family, but its role is yet unknown.

The aim of my PhD project is to characterize the function of ORA1 and the cells expressing it using a variety of molecular biological techniques and immunohistochemistry.