People
Back to Faculty Listing | Neuroscience Research Areas
Robertson, Hugh M.
Professor, Entomology, Cell and Developmental Biology
Ph.D., University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Research Areas
Molecular basis of insect olfaction
Our understanding of the molecular basis of insect olfaction has advanced rapidly in the past few years, primarily as a result of the discovery of the superfamily of insect chemoreceptors that appear to mediate the specifity of all insect olfaction and gustation. These seven-transmembrane G-protein-coupled receptors are a distinct superfamily relative to the well-known GPCR superfamilies. This breakthrough resulted from the sequencing of the Drosophila melanogaster genome, and the sequencing of additional insect genomes such as the African malaria mosquito Anopheles gambiae and the honey bee Apis mellifera has allowed us to define their chemoreceptor repertoires and begin studying their functions. We have also independently identified candidate chemoreceptors in the hawkmoth Manduca sexta, and are studying their involvement in pheromone detection. Finally, we have implicated a small lineage of related receptors in the soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans.
Representative Publications
Thomas JH, Kelley JL, Robertson HM, Ly K, and Swanson WJ. 2005. Adaptive evolution in the srz chemoreceptor families of Caenorhabditis elegans and Caenorhabditis briggsae. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 102:4476-4481.
Robertson HM, Warr CG, and Carlson JR. 2003. Molecular evolution of the insect chemoreceptor superfamily in Drosophila melanogaster. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 100 Suppl 2: 14537-14542.
Hill CA, Fox AN, Pitts RJ, Kent LB, Tan PL, Chrystal MA, Cravchik A, Collins FH, Robertson HM, and Zwiebel LJ. 2002. G-protein-coupled receptors in Anopheles gambiae. Science 298:176-178.
Fox AN, Pitts RJ, Robertson HM, Carlson JR, and Zwiebel LJ. 2001. Candidate odorant receptors from the malaria vector mosquito Anopheles gambiae and evidence of down-regulation in response to blood feeding. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 98:14693-14697.
Robertson HM. 2000. The large srh family of chemoreceptor genes in Caenorhabditis nematodes reveals processes of genome evolution involving large duplications and deletions and intron gains and losses. Genome Research 10:192-203.
Additional Information
Related Research (By Area):
Bioinformatics and Neuroinformatics
Neurogenomics and Sociogenomics
Sensory and Motor Systems
Contact information:
