The Southern house mosquito Culex quinquefasciatus relies on its olfactory system to locate the human hosts for blood meals, by which several deadly diseases are transmitted. Olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) housed in the sensilla on the olfactory appendages send their axons into the antennal lobes (ALs), the primary olfactory center in the brain, where the OSNs expressing the same olfactory receptors converge upon the same spherical structures known as glomeruli in the AL. The structure of the antennal lobe, that is, the spatial organization of the glomeruli, governs the insect's odor identification and discrimination. Drosophila studies have demonstrated the specific connections between receptors and glomeruli based on the 3D structure of the antennal lobe, deepening our understanding of the relationships between glomerular activities and behaviors, but as yet the structure of the Cx. quinquefasciatus antennal lobe remains unknown. We therefore constructed a 3D model of the Cx. quinquefasciatus antennal lobe using nc82 antibody staining, identifying 62 and 44 glomeruli in the female and male mosquito antennal lobe, respectively, with a significant sexual dimorphism in terms of the antennal lobe volume and glomerulus number. These results demonstrate the structural basis of mosquito odor coding and provide a platform for future studies of the mosquito olfactory signal processing mechanism.

中文翻译：

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南方家蚊库蚊（Culex quinquefasciatus）触角叶的三维结构

南方家蚊库蚊 (Culex quinquefasciatus) 依靠其嗅觉系统来定位人类宿主以获取血液，从而传播多种致命疾病。位于嗅觉附件上的感受器中的嗅觉感觉神经元 (OSN) 将其轴突发送到触角叶 (AL)，即大脑中的主要嗅觉中心，在那里表达相同嗅觉受体的 OSN 会聚在称为肾小球的相同球形结构上在 AL。触角叶的结构，即肾小球的空间组织，控制着昆虫的气味识别和辨别。果蝇研究已经证明了基于触角叶 3D 结构的受体和肾小球之间的特定联系，加深我们对肾小球活动和行为之间关系的理解，但尚未了解 Cx 的结构。quinquefasciatus 触角叶仍然未知。因此，我们构建了 Cx 的 3D 模型。quinquefasciatus 触角叶使用 nc82 抗体染色，分别识别雌性和雄性蚊子触角叶中的 62 和 44 个肾小球，在触角叶体积和肾小球数量方面具有显着的性别二态性。这些结果证明了蚊子气味编码的结构基础，并为未来蚊子嗅觉信号处理机制的研究提供了平台。分别在雌性和雄性蚊子触角叶中识别出 62 个和 44 个肾小球，在触角叶体积和肾小球数量方面具有显着的性别二态性。这些结果证明了蚊子气味编码的结构基础，并为未来蚊子嗅觉信号处理机制的研究提供了平台。分别在雌性和雄性蚊子触角叶中识别出 62 个和 44 个肾小球，在触角叶体积和肾小球数量方面具有显着的性别二态性。这些结果证明了蚊子气味编码的结构基础，并为未来蚊子嗅觉信号处理机制的研究提供了平台。