Significant experimental evidence has indicated that the olfactory system is able to infer simultaneously odor identity and intensity.
In general, cells achieve this through signaling pathways: an external stress is sensed and information about the stress identity and intensity is transmitted downstream to proteins called transcription factors (TFs), which initiate changes in gene expression such as the expression of appropriate stress response genes.
D) We have revised the discussion of "signal identity vs. intensity" transduction as requested by the reviewers.
The pattern recognition systems of the brain then extract information on odor identity, odor intensity, and its presence in space and time (Wilson and Mainen 2006).
The effect of pertussis toxin was independent of odorant identity and intensity, indicating a generalized involvement of Go in olfactory reception.
We therefore focus on the response of single genes and ask: can cells reliably transmit both signal identity and intensity information in the amplitude and frequency of TFs to target genes in the presence of biochemical noise?
Encoding and transmitting signal identity and intensity information in the dynamics of a single transcription factor (TF). (A ) Different signals (e.g., stress or ligand exposure) can be encoded in the dynamics of a single TF.
We found that in vivo disruption of Gαo/i subunits in the ORNs of Drosophila leads to olfactory behavioral deficits and reduced the amplitude of the odor responses regardless of odor identity and intensity.
Thus, mut B almost approaches a range where information about both signal identity and intensity could conceivably be transduced nearly without error like a 'rheostat', though the natural Msn2 target genes, HXK1 and SIP18, do not.
Beyond p53 and Msn2, amplitude- or frequency encoding of signal identity and intensity information is conserved throughout eukaryotic signaling pathways (see also Berridge et al., 2000; Werner et al., 2005; Cai et al., 2008; Warmflash et al., 2012; Albeck et al., 2013; Aoki et al., 2013; Imayoshi et al., 2013; Dalal et al., 2014; Harima et al., 2014).
