Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

An advanced, in-depth treatment of a specialized area of organic chemistry.

COURSE DETAILS:

Molecular Aspects of Chemoreception

The chemical senses (taste, smell and nociception) link a living organism with its environment. Various
strategies for sensing chemical substances in the environment and of responding to them have arisen
over evolutionary time. The purpose of chemoreception is for a living organism to find nutrients, interact
with other members of its species, interact with other organisms, regulate its growth and reproduction
and avoid toxins. Many substances in the environment are sensed, and these range in molecular
complexity from simple (such as H+,CO2, water, sugars or amino acids), to complex lipids, alkaloids,
terpenes and other natural products. These signals serve many different functions. They can simply
reflect the physical properties of the environment, or they can be emitted as semiochemicals (signal
chemicals) for communication within or between species, or they can be signals emitted within a
multicellular organism to regulate metabolism, growth and behaviour (i. e. hormones or
neurotransmitters). Despite the bewildering array of signals, there are elegant common underlying
molecular mechanisms in their detection. In this course we will learn about these mechanisms, focusing
on the physical interactions between the signals and their chemoreceptors. We will address how Nature
has solved the problem of encoding the bewildering diversity of molecular structure in a genetically
economical way.


Topics:
1. Review of cellular components, their structures and expression; neuronal systems
2. Molecular interactions between small molecules and macromolecules & techniques used to
evaluate them
3. Chemoreception in prokaryotes
4. Chemoreception in multicellular eukaryotes:
Invertebrates: insects, nematodes, acari, crustaceans and molluscs
Vertebrates (e.g., mice, rats, dogs, humans)
Plants: interactions with the soil and with herbivores
5. Signal transduction mechanisms
6. Coding in chemosensory systems
7. Basic neuronal mechanisms and feedback systems in animals


Project: Students will work on a project, which will include a deep search of the literature on a particular
topic related to chemoreception, a presentation to the class and a written review of their topic

Grading

Materials

MATERIALS + SUPPLIES:

Textbook: any biochemistry text will cover the reviews under # 1. We will use recent reviews from the literature as a basis.

REQUIRED READING NOTES: