Research Projects

Recent research strongly advocates a role for olfaction beyond behavioral changes and danger sensing. In this regard, the importance of olfaction in mediating immune priming is well established in the Drosophila model system (Madhwal et.al., 2020). Given the physiological importance of olfactory-immune axis, we hypothesize that this paradigm is evolutionarily conserved and thus are intrigued to explore the existence of a functional olfactory-immune axis in higher vertebrate model systems. The goal will be to establish a link between olfaction and immunity and further investigate the underlying physiological relevance of this cross-talk. We hypothesize that olfactory stimulation and development of a competent immune repertoire are connected and this grant tests this hypothesis (Objective 1 and Objective 2). We also aim to address the underlying physiological relevance of this cross-talk (Objective 3). Upon successful execution of this project, we expect this to be the first comprehensive study that investigates the olfactory-immune axis and its relevance in a vertebrate model system. Insights obtained from our proposed objectives can also provide a comprehensive outlook on the implications of olfaction and immune priming in mice leading to better disease fighting capacity and would be immensely valuable for the understanding of physiological relevance of olfaction beyond social behavior. As immune changes can be absolutely essential for disease fighting and building competence, its regulation via olfaction could be a logical survival strategy. Our experiments will also test if any plausible changes in immunity are induced specifically by sickness odors emanated by infected conspecifics or by a general odor enrichment regimen. It is well established that the body odors of an individual change in various disease states such as inflammation, diabetes and even cancer. We theorize that this change in the composition of body volatiles might serve a bigger cause of signalling the healthy conspecifics of the plausible danger which might then allow them to prime their immune system to mount a better response upon probable disease contraction. In order to test this theory, we will adopt various experimental strategies to see how the exposure of a healthy animal to the odors of a diseased conspecific in a contactless manner can lead to changes in the bone marrow hematopoietic niche, hematopoietic stem cells, macrophage activation and also pro and anti-inflammatory cytokines in the recipient animals. Testing this in an odor deprivation model will help us to conclude if the immune changes are specifically mediated by olfaction. At the end of the project, we would also be able to delineate the mechanism mediating the olfactory-immune axis. Extrapolating the findings could be helpful in designing an odor regimen to enhance the olfactory responses which would in turn help build a stronger immunity.