The olfactory mucosa, first actor of olfactory detection, is sensitive to glucocorticoid hormone.

The olfactory mucosa (OM) is the primary site of odorant detection, and its axonal projections relay information to brain structures for signal processing. We have previously observed that olfactory function can be affected during a prolonged stress challenge in Wistar rats. The stress response is a neuroendocrine retro-controlled loop allowing pleiotropic adaptive tissue alterations, which are partly mediated through the release of glucocorticoid hormones.

Daily oscillation of odorant detection in rat olfactory epithelium.

Most of biological variables follow a daily rhythm. It holds true as well for sensory capacities as two decades of research have demonstrated that the odorant induced activity in the olfactory bulbs oscillates during the day. Olfactory bulbs are the first central nervous system structures, which receive inputs from the olfactory neurons located in the nose olfactory epithelium in vertebrates.

Structurally related odorant ligands of the olfactory receptor OR51E2 differentially promote metastasis emergence and tumor growth.

Olfactory receptors are G protein-coupled receptors. Some of them are expressed in tumor cells, such as the OR51E2 receptor overexpressed in LNCaP prostate cancer cells. It is considered a prostate tumor marker.

High Fructose Diet inducing diabetes rapidly impacts olfactory epithelium and behavior in mice.

Type 2 Diabetes (T2D), a major public health issue reaching worldwide epidemic, has been correlated with lower olfactory abilities in humans. As olfaction represents a major component of feeding behavior, its alteration may have drastic consequences on feeding behaviors that may in turn aggravates T2D. In order to decipher the impact of T2D on the olfactory epithelium, we fed mice with a high fructose diet (HFruD) inducing early diabetic state in 4 to 8 weeks.

Olfactory epithelium changes in germfree mice.

Intestinal epithelium development is dramatically impaired in germfree rodents, but the consequences of the absence of microbiota have been overlooked in other epithelia. In the present study, we present the first description of the bacterial communities associated with the olfactory epithelium and explored differences in olfactory epithelium characteristics between germfree and conventional, specific pathogen-free, mice. While the anatomy of the olfactory epithelium was not significantly different, we observed a thinner olfactory cilia layer along with a decreased cellular turn-over in germfree mice.