Spatial distribution of calcium-gated chloride channels in olfactory cilia.

Background: In vertebrate olfactory receptor neurons, sensory cilia transduce odor stimuli into changes in neuronal membrane potential. The voltage changes are primarily caused by the sequential openings of two types of channel: a cyclic-nucleotide-gated (CNG) cationic channel and a calcium-gated chloride channel. In frog, the cilia are 25 to 200 µm in length, so the spatial distributions of the channels may be an important determinant of odor sensitivity.

Identification of Cl(Ca) channel distributions in olfactory cilia.

Identification of detailed features of neuronal systems is an important challenge in the biosciences today. Transduction of an odor into an electrical signal occurs in the membranes of the cilia. The Cl(Ca) channels that reside in the ciliary membrane are activated by calcium, allow a depolarizing efflux of Cl(-) and are thought to amplify the electrical signal to the brain.