Odour receptors found in human lung tissue
London: It was always thought that the sole bodily function of olfactory receptors was to smell and they could only be found inside the nose. But a new study has found two olfactory receptors in human lung tissue. And when the researchers from Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany activated these receptors, they found that they regulated the way in which the airways smooth muscle cells contracted. Contraction of smooth muscle changes the size of our airways, suggesting that this research, published in the journal Frontiers in Physiology, may open new avenues for treating chronic breathing disorders — such as asthma, emphysema and bronchitis — that constrict and obstruct the airways. Working with human smooth muscle cells, Benjamin Kalbe and his colleagues applied a large number of odour molecules and watched two of them activate the muscle cells. The researchers also determined how activating the receptors with the odour molecules affected the isolated smooth muscle cells. In th...