CRC 629 B04 - Cell-Cell Recognition in Olfactory System Development

Basic data for this project

Description

A striking feature of olfactory system organization is the evolutionarily conserved arrangement of olfactory receptor neuron (ORN) terminals into an odortopic map. In mouse and Drosophila, ORNs expressing the same odorant receptor, distributed over the surface of the sense organ, form connections to a common set of CNS dendrites spatially segregated into a distinct neuropil structure called glomerulus. The specificity of these stereotypic connections suggests a sophisticated cell-cell recognition system underlying the glomerulus-specific assembly of pre- and postsynaptic elements. The goal of this project is the identification and characterization of the cellular and molecular mechanisms allowing glomerulus-specific axon segregation and target recognition.