Large-scale transcriptional profiling of chemosensory neurons identifies receptor-ligand pairs in vivo

Based on the finding that the concentration of mRNA encoding olfactory chemoreceptors decreases after odorant stimulation, the authors developed a large-scale transcriptomic approach that allows the identification of ligand-chemoreceptor pairs in various species in vivo. This represents a critical step in our understanding of combinatorial coding of odors.