
==== Front
bioRxiv
BIORXIV
bioRxiv
2692-8205
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

10.1101/2024.08.21.608847
preprint
1
Article
Olfactory receptor coexpression and co-option in the dengue mosquito
Adavi Elisha David http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7269-525X

dos Anjos Vitor L http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9389-7774

Kotb Summer
Metz Hillery C http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8246-3513

Tian David http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5285-6810

Zhao Zhilei http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6624-6853

Zung Jessica L http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2361-5775

Rose Noah H http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7129-4753

McBride Carolyn S http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8898-1768

22 8 2024
2024.08.21.608847https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
http://biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/2024.08.21.608847
nihpp-2024.08.21.608847.pdf
The olfactory sensory neurons of vinegar flies and mice tend to express a single ligand-specific receptor. While this ′one neuron-one receptor′ motif has long been expected to apply broadly across insects, recent evidence suggests it may not extend to mosquitoes. We sequenced and analyzed the transcriptomes of 46,000 neurons from antennae of the dengue mosquito Aedes aegypti to resolve all olfactory, thermosensory, and hygrosensory neuron subtypes and identify the receptors expressed therein. We find that half of all olfactory subtypes coexpress multiple receptors. However, coexpression occurs almost exclusively among genes from the same family—among odorant receptors (ORs) or among ionotropic receptors (IRs). Coexpression of ORs with IRs is exceedingly rare. Many coexpressed receptors are recent duplicates. In other cases, the recruitment or co-option of single receptors by multiple neuron subtypes has placed these genes together in the same cells with distant paralogs. Close examination of data from Drosophila reveal rare cases of both phenomena, indicating that the olfactory systems of these two species are not fundamentally different, but instead fall at different locations along a continuum likely to encompass diverse insects.
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