Abstract
Each olfactory sensory neuron (OSN) expresses a single odorant receptor (OR) gene from the class I or class II repertoire in mice. The mechanisms that regulate OR class choice in OSNs remain unknown. Here, we show that the transcription factor Bcl11b determines the OR class to be expressed in OSNs. Both loss- and gain-of-function analyses demonstrate that class I is a default fate of OSNs and that Bcl11b dictates a class II OR choice by suppressing the effect of the J-element, a class I-OR enhancer. We further demonstrate that OSN-specific genetic manipulations of Bcl11b bias the OR class choice, generating mice with “class I-dominant” and “class II-dominant” noses, which display contrasting innate olfactory behaviors to two distinct aversive odorants. Overall, these findings reveal a unique transcriptional mechanism mediating a binary switch for OR class choice that is crucial to both the anatomical and functional organization of the olfactory system.
Highlights
The genomic organization of class I and class II genes is quite different
We demonstrate that the transcription factor Bcl11b determines the class of odorant receptor (OR) gene to be expressed in mouse olfactory sensory neuron (OSN)
Because cell-type specifications are often controlled by transcription factors, we screened OR class-specific transcription factors using a gene expression database to identify candidate molecules that may specify OR class in OSNs24,25
Summary
The genomic organization of class I and class II genes is quite different. During mammalian OR evolution, class I genes persisted in a single gene cluster on a single chromosome, whereas class II genes spread out over most chromosomes[16,17]. ~60–70% of OSNs expressing either the dorsal class II gene Olfr[151] or the ventral class II gene Olfr[17] were Bcl11b-positive (Fig. 1b, c and Supplementary Data 1).
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