The Chemosensory Receptor Repertoire of a True Shark Is Dominated by a Single Olfactory Receptor Family.

ABSTRACT: Throughout the animal kingdom chemical senses are one of the primary means by which organisms make sense of their environment. To achieve perception of complex chemosensory stimuli large repertoires of olfactory and gustatory receptors are employed in bony vertebrates, which are characterized by high evolutionary dynamics in receptor repertoire size and composition. However, little is known about their evolution in earlier diverging vertebrates such as cartilaginous fish, which include sharks, skates, rays, and chimeras. Recently, the olfactory repertoire of a chimera, elephant shark, was found to be curiously reduced in odorant receptor number. Elephant sharks rely heavily on electroreception to localize prey; thus, it is unclear how representative their chemosensory receptor repertoire s

SUBMITTER: Sharma K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6368271 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature