Figure 1.
Unilateral naris closure differentially alters the cell density of individual OR genes.
(A) The linear length from a coronal section was determined by outlining the basement membrane which separates the olfactory epithelium from the propria lamina. The rectangles indicate the approximate locations from which images in B–D were taken. (B–D) The coronal sections were hybridized with antisense RNA probes of MOR13-4 (dorsal zone, B), MOR174-13 (intermediate zone, C), and MOR244-3 (ventral zone, D). The two images in D were taken under identical conditions from the same section and the staining in the open side appeared much weaker than that in the closed side. Arrows mark examples of labeled cells. Scale bar = 0.5 mm in A and 0.2 mm in B–D.
Figure 2.
The thickness of mature OSN layer does not differ significantly between the closed and open side.
Coronal sections from 4-week-old mice that underwent neonatal, unilateral naris closure were stained with antibodies against OMP (red) and a neuronal marker Tuj1 (green). (A) A low-magnification image shows an entire section. Scale bar = 0.5 mm. The rectangles indicate the approximate locations where confocal images in B to E were taken. The dashed lines illustrate how the thickness of the mature OSN layer is measured in defined regions of zone 1 and zone 4. (B–E) High-magnification confocal images (projected from a stack of 5 images with z step = 3 µm) were taken from zone 1 and zone 4 in the closed (B, D) and open side (C, E). Scale bars = 20 µm.
Table 1.
Naris closure causes differential changes in the cell density for different OR genes.
Table 2.
Naris closure induces higher expression levels in the closed side for most OR genes expressed in the lateroventral zone 4.
Figure 3.
The MOR236-1 cell density is lower in OMP-Kir2.1 mice as compared with wild-type mice.
The coronal sections from wild-type (A) and OMP-Kir2.1 (B) mice were hybridized with an antisense probe for MOR236-1 gene. Arrows mark examples of labeled cells. Scale bars = 0.2 mm.
Figure 4.
OMP-Kir2.1 mice have thinner olfactory epithelium with an increased density of apoptotic cells than wild-type controls.
(A–D) Coronal sections from wild-type and OMP-Kir2.1 mice were stained with antibodies against OMP (blue), BrdU (green) and cleaved caspase-3 (red). Confocal images (projected from a stack of 5 images with z step = 3 µm) were taken from zone 1 and zone 4 in wild-type (A, C) and OMP-Kir2.1 (B, D) mice. (E) Summary of the thickness of mature OSN layer and the density of BrdU and caspase-3 positive cells in zone 1 and zone 4 from wild-type and OMP-Kir2.1 mice. Statistical significance was obtained by Bonferroni post-hoc tests: NS (not significant) indicates p>0.05, ** p<0.01, and *** p<0.001.
Table 3.
The cell density for most OR types decreases in OMP-Kir2.1 mice.