{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"institution":[{"name":"bioRxiv"}],"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,20]],"date-time":"2026-09-20T05:05:49Z","timestamp":1789880749620,"version":"4.0.1"},"posted":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,30]]},"group-title":"Genomics","reference-count":54,"publisher":"openRxiv","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,30]],"date-time":"2026-05-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1780099200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0515k5w36","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"NIH","award":["R35GM153384"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R35GM153384"]}]},{"name":"NIH","award":["P50HD068157"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P50HD068157"]}]},{"name":"NIH","award":["R35GM146901"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["R35GM146901"]}]},{"name":"NIH","award":["F31DC021641"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["F31DC021641"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"accepted":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,16]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                <jats:p>\n                  Animals detect diverse chemicals using hundreds of chemoreceptor proteins. In many organisms, sensory chemoreceptors obey a one-receptor-type-per-cell rule, which organizes information gathered by sensory neurons. A key question remains how receptor expression gets diversified so that hundreds of chemoreceptors get expressed across the population of sensory neurons. Here we show that diverse odorant receptor (OR) expression in mice requires\n                  <jats:italic>testis expressed gene 15<\/jats:italic>\n                  (\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15<\/jats:italic>\n                  ). We find that\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15<\/jats:italic>\n                  regulates OR expression in neuronal precursor cells. In\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15<\/jats:italic>\n                  deficient (\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15-\/-<\/jats:italic>\n                  ) mice, OR transcript levels are increased in precursors, a handful of early-transcribed OR genes get expressed at abnormally high levels, and these ORs come to dominate the olfactory sensory neuron population. This results in a profound reduction in the diversity of OR gene choice as well as disrupted spatial patterning of the olfactory epithelium, without disrupting the one-receptor-type-per-cell rule. Tex15 encodes a transcriptional repressor, and we show that\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15-\/-<\/jats:italic>\n                  mice have reduced heterochromatin-associated H3K9me3 on OR genes. Thus, we propose that\n                  <jats:italic>Tex15<\/jats:italic>\n                  directs a heterochromatin-based transcriptional repression mechanism that prevents uneven transcriptional onset from skewing OR choice. This mechanism safeguards the cellular diversity that is essential for broadly tuned chemosensation.\n                <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.64898\/2026.05.27.728302","type":"posted-content","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,31]],"date-time":"2026-05-31T08:10:13Z","timestamp":1780215013000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["TEX15 safeguards neuronal diversity in the mouse olfactory system"],"prefix":"10.64898","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-3830-7465","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nusrath","family":"Yusuf","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8844-8886","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"David H.","family":"Brann","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chuhanwen","family":"Sun","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Genetics, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7867-8300","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Joshua","family":"Danoff","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Alina","family":"Irvine","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hetanshi","family":"Patel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0000-7499-8801","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Nader Boutros","family":"Ghali","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jerome","family":"Kahiapo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiekun","family":"Yang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Genetics, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-8068-3862","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Sandeep R.","family":"Datta","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2311-4089","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"P. 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