PACALON , Jody

The perpetual struggle of living organisms to maintain their homeostasis despite an ever-changing environment has pushed evolution towards ever greater complexity. Even early in evolution, organisms were able to analyze their chemical environment through chemoperception and respond accordingly with specific behavior. The wide variety of...

International audience

The Trace Amine Associated Receptors (TAARs) are a family of chemosensory receptors that recognize volatile amines. These receptors are few in number and highly conserved, compared to regular olfactory receptors. Polymorphisms in the TAAR family can have a drastic impact on our perception of amine compounds. Our study combine numerical...

International audience

Bitter taste receptors (TAS2Rs) are a poorly understood subgroup of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The experimental structure of these receptors has yet to be determined, and key-residues controlling their function remain mostly unknown. We designed an integrative approach to improve comparative modeling of TAS2Rs. Using current knowledge...

In numerous insects, the olfactory receptor family forms a unique class of heteromeric cation channels. Recent progress in resolving the odorant receptor structures offers unprecedented opportunities for deciphering their molecular mechanisms of ligand recognition. Unexpectedly, these structures in apo or ligand-bound states did not reveal the...

Living organisms recognize the chemical circumstance through G-protein coupled odorant receptors (ORs), which consist of seven transmembranes (TMs) connected by three intracellular loops (ICLs) and three extracellular loops (ECLs). Although ECLs are the first gateway for chemicals to enter the orthosteric ligand binding site, their...

In numerous insects, the olfactory receptor family forms a unique class of heteromeric cation channels. Recent progress in resolving the odorant receptor structures offers unprecedented opportunities for deciphering their molecular mechanisms of ligand recognition. Unexpectedly, these structures in apo or ligand-bound states did not reveal the...

Mammals recognize chemicals in the air via G protein-coupled odorant receptors (ORs). In addition to their orthosteric binding site, other segments of these receptors modulate ligand recognition. Focusing on human hOR1A1, which is considered prototypical of class II ORs, we used a combination of molecular modeling, site-directed mutagenesis,...

G protein-coupled olfactory receptors (ORs) enable us to detect innumerous odorants. They are also ectopically expressed in non-olfactory tissues and emerging as attractive drug targets. ORs can be promiscuous or highly specific, which is part of a larger mechanism for odor discrimination. Here, we demonstrate that the OR extracellular loop 2...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments have taken drastic measures to avoid an overflow of intensive care units. Accurate metrics of disease spread are critical for the reopening strategies. Here, we show that self-reports of smell/taste changes are more closely associated with hospital overload and are earlier markers of the...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments have taken drastic measures to avoid an overflow of intensive care units. Accurate metrics of disease spread are critical for the reopening strategies. Here, we show that self-reports of smell/taste changes are more closely associated with hospital overload and are earlier markers of the...

In response to the COVID-19, many governments have taken unprecedented measures in peacetime, to avoid an overflow of intensive care units and critical care resuscitation units (CCRUs). Due to the heavy societal and economic impact of measure such as the lockdown1, accurate means to characterize the spread of the disease would be extremely...