December 13, 2023
Olfactory receptor (OR) choice is a probabilistic process whereby different repertoires of OR genes across the dorsoventral axis of the olfactory epithelium compete for transcriptional dominance and singular expression. In the same week, a paper from Lisa Baskhirova revealed how a dorsoventral gradient of transcription factors NFIA, B and X biases this singular transcriptional choice towards specific OR repertoires, whereas another from Ariel Pourmorady discovered an RNA-mediated mechanism by which each olfactory neuron chooses one of the competing OR alleles.
