Electro-olfactogram and multiunit olfactory receptor responses to binary and trinary mixtures of amino acids in the channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus.

In vivo electrophysiological recordings from populations of olfactory receptor neurons in the channel catfish, Ictalurus punctatus, clearly showed that responses to binary and trinary mixtures of amino acids were predictable with knowledge obtained from previous cross-adaptation studies of the relative independence of the respective binding sites of the component stimuli. All component stimuli, from which equal aliquots were drawn to form the mixtures, were adjusted in concentration to provide for approximately equal response magnitudes. The magnitude of the response to a mixture whose component amino acids showed significant cross-reactivity was equivalent to the response to any single component used to form that mixture. A mixture whose component amino acids showed minimal cross-adaptation produced a significantly larger relative response than a mixture whose components exhibited considerable cross-reactivity. This larger response approached the sum of the responses to the individual component amino acids tested at the resulting concentrations in the mixture, even though olfactory receptor dose-response functions for amino acids in this species are characterized by extreme sensory compression (i.e., successive concentration increments produce progressively smaller physiological responses). Thus, the present study indicates that the response to sensory stimulation of olfactory receptor sites is more enhanced by the activation of different receptor site types than by stimulus interaction at a single site type.