Office: G-165 Medical Sciences |
Phone: (513) 558-6099 |
Mail Location: 0521 |
E-mail: steve@syrano.acb.uc.edu |
I am part of a group at the university studying vertebrate taste and smell. My own goal is to describe how an external chemical stimulus (an odorant) is transduced into the electrical signal that ultimately reaches the brain. This stimulus transduction takes place in olfactory receptor neurons, which are part of the sensory epithelium lining the nasal cavity. Each neuron sends several hairlike processes called cilia into the mucus layer in the nose. It is on the surfaces of these fine cilia that odorant molecules are recognized and the first electrical signal is generated. My studies use olfactory neurons from the grass frog. Using patch-clamp electrophysiology, I study the chemical and electrical properties of the ciliary membrane.
Schematic of the method for electrical recording from one cilium of an olfactory receptor neuron.
A single cilium is plucked from an olfactory receptor neuron. I am then able to measure current flow across the ciliary membrane while perturbing the chemical and electrical environment. Odorants act on the external face of the ciliary membrane, causing second messenger molecules to be generated inside the cilium. These messengers then open transmembrane channels in the cilium and, in an intact neuron, a depolarizing receptor current results.
Selected Publications
Kleene, S.J. and Gesteland, R.C. (1991) Transmembrane currents in frog olfactory cilia. J. Membr. Biol. 120:5-81.
Kleene, S.J. and Gesteland, R.C. (1991) Calcium-activated chloride conductance in frog olfactory cilia. J. Neurosci. 11:624-3629.
Kleene, S.J. (1993) Origin of the chloride current in olfactory transduction. Neuron 11:23-132.