The molecular biology of olfactory perception

This review discusses the anatomy of human odorant reception, with particul ar reference to the seven-helical transmembrane-protein superfamily of olfa ctory receptors, the concept of a novel multigene olfactory-receptor family , the location of the olfactory-receptor genes in the human genome and the characterization of the receptor proteins by cloning and overexpression. It then turns to the evidence for secondary message transduction following od orant binding, and the latest evidence on the structural analysis of G-prot ein coupled signalling as well as how the binding of odorant molecules to t he transmembrane olfactory receptors is transmitted through the neural path ways to the brain, including the remarkable success in generating cDNA libr aries from single neurons.