US scientists have developed a microfluidic-based platform that screens thousands of cells at once and could be used to identify rare cells behaviour to help cancer and stem cell biology research, they claim.
Tens of thousands of odorant molecules can be discriminated by the sense of smell. Olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) in the nose translate odorant chemical signals into unique neuronal signals that guide many important behaviours. Odours activate odorant receptors (ORs) of which there are over 1000 types in mice. Each OSN expresses only one type of OR but the large numbers have made it impossible to analyse odour response across all OSN-OR types using current techniques.
