Microfluidic Odorant Sensor with Frog Eggs Expressing Olfactory Receptors

This study describes a membrane-protein based odorant sensor device consisting of microfluidic channels and frog eggs (Xenopus laevis oocyte) expressing olfactory receptors. These receptors are from silkmoth´s receptors, BmOR1 and BmOR3 excited by specific pheromones, bombykol and bombykal, respectively. We employ a conventional two electrode voltage clamp method for the signal measurement of the oocytes in our microfluidic system. We have succeeded in selectively detecting these two types of odorant-like chemicals and the two current traces can be recorded by parallel measurement in this system. It implies that our suggested devices can be applied to multichannel detection as a chemical sensor using biological reactions.