Combinatorial encoding of odors in the mosquito antennal lobe

Pranjul Singh, Shefali Goyal, Smith Gupta, Sanket Garg, Abhinav Tiwari, Varad Rajput, Alexander Shakeel Bates, Arjit Kant Gupta and Nitin Gupta ()
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Pranjul Singh: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Shefali Goyal: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Smith Gupta: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Sanket Garg: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Abhinav Tiwari: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Varad Rajput: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Alexander Shakeel Bates: Harvard Medical School
Arjit Kant Gupta: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
Nitin Gupta: Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: Abstract Among the cues that a mosquito uses to find a host for blood-feeding, the smell of the host plays an important role. Previous studies have shown that host odors contain hundreds of chemical odorants, which are detected by different receptors on the peripheral sensory organs of mosquitoes. But how individual odorants are encoded by downstream neurons in the mosquito brain is not known. We developed an in vivo preparation for patch-clamp electrophysiology to record from projection neurons and local neurons in the antennal lobe of Aedes aegypti. Combining intracellular recordings with dye-fills, morphological reconstructions, and immunohistochemistry, we identify different sub-classes of antennal lobe neurons and their putative interactions. Our recordings show that an odorant can activate multiple neurons innervating different glomeruli, and that the stimulus identity and its behavioral preference are represented in the population activity of the projection neurons. Our results provide a detailed description of the second-order olfactory neurons in the central nervous system of mosquitoes and lay a foundation for understanding the neural basis of their olfactory behaviors.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39303-w

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