[Research progress of olfactory receptor neurons and its application in olfactory biosensors].

Olfactory organ is an important sensory system and therefore it can serve as the research object of the neural information processing and biologic evolution due to its simplicity and ancient characteristics of the system. Besides, the olfactory biosensors based on olfactory receptor neurons (ORNs) have prosperous applications in environmental monitoring and food testing. This review introduces configuration and signal transduction of ORNs. Then it examines neuronal coding strategies and how the characteristic of responses to mechanical stimuli applied to olfactory processing. Finally, it illustrates the recent research of olfactory biosensors based on ORNs/olfactory receptors and puts forward the direction of future research.