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Zonal expression of olfactory receptors in the olfactory epithelium

Expression patterns of odorant receptors in the olfactory epithelium. In the nose, mature olfactory sensory neurons expressing the same odorant receptors gene are stochastically distributed within a spatially restricted area of the olfactory epithelium, also known as a “zone.” Early studies identified four nonoverlapping odorant receptor expression zones, but later studies identified as many as nine to 12 partially overlapping zones. In the schematic, the four nonoverlapping odorant receptor expression zones (blue, red, yellow, and green colors) are shown: left panel, lateral view of the olfactory mucosa; right panel, a coronal section of the olfactory mucosa (including the respiratory epithelium, in grey). (Source: Kurian SM, Naressi RG, Manoel D, Barwich AS, Malnic B, Saraiva LR. Odor coding in the mammalian olfactory epithelium. Cell Tissue Res 2021;383[1]:445-56. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International [CC BY] license, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0.)