Isolation and in vitro differentiation of conditionally immortalized murine olfactory receptor neurons

摘要

Olfactory receptor cell lines are conditionally immortalized. Under permissive conditions they proliferate. Under nonpermissive conditions the cells differentiate into mature functional Olfactory Receptor Neurons (ORNs) expressing multiple olfactory neuron-specific markers. Exposure of cells of the clonal lines to a battery of odorants indicates a functionally heterogeneous population, in which approximately 1% of the cells respond to any particular single odorant. This heterogeneity suggests the potential of the cells of the cell line to express multiple different receptors and demonstrates that the cell line is an appropriate model for native Olfactory Receptor Neurons.