Human olfactory perception differs enormously between individuals, with large reported perceptual variations in the intensity and pleasantness of a given odour. For instance, androstenone (5alpha-androst-16-en-3-one), an odorous steroid derived from testosterone, is variously perceived by different individuals as offensive ("sweaty, urinous"), pleasant ("sweet, floral") or odourless. Similar variation in odour perception has been observed for several other odours. The mechanistic basis of variation in odour perception between individuals is unknown. We investigated whether genetic variation in human odorant receptor genes accounts in part for variation in odour perception between individuals. Here we show that a human odorant receptor, OR7D4, is selectively activated in vitro by androstenone and the related odorous steroid androstadienone (androsta-4,16-dien-3-one) and does not respond to a panel of 64 other odours and two solvents. A common variant of this receptor (OR7D4 WM) contains two non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), resulting in two amino acid substitutions (R88W, T133M; hence 'RT') that severely impair function in vitro. Human subjects with RT/WM or WM/WM genotypes as a group were less sensitive to androstenone and androstadienone and found both odours less unpleasant than the RT/RT group. Genotypic variation in OR7D4 accounts for a significant proportion of the valence (pleasantness or unpleasantness) and intensity variance in perception of these steroidal odours. Our results demonstrate the first link between the function of a human odorant receptor in vitro and odour perception.

Animals use their gustatory systems to evaluate the nutritious value, toxicity, sodium content, and acidity of food. Although characterization of molecular identities that receive taste chemicals is essential, molecular receptors underlying sour taste sensation remain unclear. Here, we show that two transient receptor potential (TRP) channel members, PKD1L3 and PKD2L1, are coexpressed in a subset of taste receptor cells in specific taste areas. Cells expressing these molecules are distinct from taste cells having receptors for bitter, sweet, or umami tastants. The PKD2L1 proteins are accumulated at the taste pore region, where taste chemicals are detected. PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 proteins can interact with each other, and coexpression of the PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 is necessary for their functional cell surface expression. Finally, PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 are activated by various acids when coexpressed in heterologous cells but not by other classes of tastants. These results suggest that PKD1L3 and PKD2L1 heteromers may function as sour taste receptors.chemical senses ͉ polycystic kidney disease ͉ gustation ͉ ion channel ͉ acid T aste reception occurs at the apical tip of taste cells that form taste buds. Each taste bud has an onion-like shape and is composed of 50-100 taste cells that possess microvilli (1). There are four major taste areas in the oral region in which taste buds are concentrated: three taste areas on the tongue (circumvallate papilla, foliate papilla, and fungiform papilla) and a fourth taste area on the palate on the top surface of the mouth. In mammals, taste is generally classified into five distinct taste modalities: bitter, sweet, umami (the taste of some L-amino acids), salty, and sour (1). Much progress has been made in unraveling the molecular mechanisms of bitter, sweet, and umami taste in recent years (2-5). Bitter chemicals are detected by Ϸ30 T2R receptor family members. Sugars and sweeteners are detected by T1R2 and T1R3 heteromers, whereas umami tasting L-amino acids are detected by T1R1 and T1R3.In contrast, the molecular mechanisms involved in sensing salty and sour taste are poorly understood and even confusing (6). Regarding sour taste transduction, several candidate receptors have been proposed. For example, acid-sensing ion channel (ASIC)2 is proposed to function as a sour receptor in the rat (7). However, it is not expressed in mouse taste cells and not required for acid sensation (8). HCN1 and HCN4, members of hyperpolarization-activated cyclic nucleotide-gated (HCN) channels, also are putative sour receptor channels (9). However, calcium imaging experiments using taste bud slices did not support this possibility, because Cs ϩ , an inhibitor of HCN channels, did not block Ca 2ϩ response of taste cells to acid stimuli (10). In addition, the proteins are localized on basolateral membranes of taste cells. Members of two pore domain K ϩ channels also are proposed to have some roles in acid transduction (11,12). However, their expression levels seem to be low, and the proteins are mainly distrib...

Deciphering olfactory encoding requires a thorough description of the ligands that activate each odorant receptor (OR). In mammalian systems, however, ligands are known for fewer than 50 of over 1400 human and mouse ORs, greatly limiting our understanding of olfactory coding. We performed high-throughput screening of 93 odorants against 464 ORs expressed in heterologous cells and identified agonists for 52 mouse and 10 human ORs. We used the resulting interaction profiles to develop a predictive model relating physicochemical odorant properties, OR sequences, and their interactions. Our results provide a basis for translating odorants into receptor neuron responses and unraveling mammalian odor coding.

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Humans have approximately 400 intact odorant receptors, but each individual has a unique set of genetic variations that lead to variation in olfactory perception. We used a heterologous assay to determine how often genetic polymorphisms in odorant receptors alter receptor function. We identified agonists for 18 odorant receptors and found that 63% of the odorant receptors we examined had polymorphisms that altered in vitro function. On average, two individuals differ functionally at over 30% of their odorant receptor alleles. To show that these in vitro results are relevant to olfactory perception, we verified that variations in OR10G4 genotype explain over 15% of the observed variation in perceived intensity and over 10% of the observed variation in perceived valence for the high affinity in vitro agonist guaiacol, but do not explain phenotypic variation for the lower affinity agonists vanillin and ethyl vanillin.

A fundamental question in olfaction is which odorant receptors (ORs) are activated by a given odorant. A major roadblock to investigate odorant-OR relationship in mammals has been an inability to express ORs in heterologous cells suitable for screening active ligands for ORs. The discovery of the receptor-transporting protein (RTP) family has facilitated the effective cell-surface expression of ORs in heterologous cells. The establishment of a robust heterologous expression system for mammalian ORs facilitates the high-throughput "deorphanization" of these receptors by matching them to their cognate ligands. This protocol details the method used for evaluating the cell-surface expression and measuring the functional activation of ORs of transiently-expressed mammalian odorant receptors in HEK293T cells. The stages of odorant receptor cell-surface expression include cell culture preparation, transfer of cells, transfection, and immunocytochemistry/flow cytometry, odorant stimulation, and luciferase assay. This protocol can be completed in a period of 3 days from transfer of cells to cell-surface expression detection and/or measurement of functional activation.

The discovery of odorant receptors led to endeavors in matching them with their cognate ligands. Although it has been challenging to functionally express odorant receptors in heterologous cells, previous studies have linked efficient odorant receptor expression with N-terminal modifications and accessory proteins, including the receptor-transporting proteins (RTPs) and Ric8b. Here we have shown that a shorter form of RTP1, RTP1S, supports robust cell-surface and functional expression of representative odorant receptors. Using a combination of accessory proteins, including RTP1S, Ric8b, and G ␣olf , a diverse set of untagged odorant receptors were successfully expressed heterologously due to the synergistic effects among the various accessory proteins. Furthermore, the addition of an N-terminal rhodopsin tag to the odorant receptors, along with the same set of accessory proteins, exhibits an additional level of synergism, inducing enhanced odorant receptor responses to odorants and thus defining a more efficient heterologous expression system. We then showed that the presence or absence of different N-terminal tags has little effect on the ligand specificity of odorant receptors, although the amount of receptor expressed can play a role in the ligand response profile. The accuracy of the odorant receptor heterologous expression system involving tagged odorant receptors and various accessory proteins promises success in high throughput de-orphaning of mammalian odorant receptors.Odorant receptors (ORs), 3 with more than 1000 members in the mouse genome, comprise the largest family among all G protein-coupled receptors. After the initial identification of the OR genes in 1991 (1), one of the foci in the field of olfaction has been the identification of the cognate ligands of ORs (2). The use of recordings from adenovirally infected rat olfactory sensory neurons first successfully matched an odorant to a cloned OR (3). Although the establishment of a heterologous expression system in cell lines is essential for conducting a large scale analysis of OR ligand specificities, exogenous ORs in cell lines pose a critical problem, namely the inability to functionally express transfected ORs on the plasma membrane, possibly due to endoplasmic reticulum retention, which in turn leads to OR degradation in the proteosome (4, 5). Krautwurst et al. (6) have pioneered the method of fusing the first 20 amino acids of rhodopsin (Rho tag) to the N termini of ORs to promote their cell-surface expression, although it is not clear how Rho tag enhances expression of the ORs. Other modifications, such as the use of a signal sequence, were used to improve trafficking of OR to the plasma membrane (7-11). However, these modifications increase the functional expression for only a fraction of ORs. It is unclear whether N-terminal modifications have any undesirable effects on OR ligand selectivity, because it is almost impossible to heterologously express untagged ORs to verify their ligand selectivities. Nevertheless, there is no evidence su...

The vibrational theory of olfaction assumes that electron transfer occurs across odorants at the active sites of odorant receptors (ORs), serving as a sensitive measure of odorant vibrational frequencies, ultimately leading to olfactory perception. A previous study reported that human subjects differentiated hydrogen/ deuterium isotopomers (isomers with isotopic atoms) of the musk compound cyclopentadecanone as evidence supporting the theory. Here, we find no evidence for such differentiation at the molecular level. In fact, we find that the human musk-recognizing receptor, OR5AN1, identified using a heterologous OR expression system and robustly responding to cyclopentadecanone and muscone, fails to distinguish isotopomers of these compounds in vitro. Furthermore, the mouse (methylthio)methanethiol-recognizing receptor, MOR244-3, as well as other selected human and mouse ORs, responded similarly to normal, deuterated, and 13 C isotopomers of their respective ligands, paralleling our results with the musk receptor OR5AN1. These findings suggest that the proposed vibration theory does not apply to the human musk receptor OR5AN1, mouse thiol receptor MOR244-3, or other ORs examined. Also, contrary to the vibration theory predictions, muscone-d 30 lacks the 1,380-to 1,550-cm −1 IR bands claimed to be essential for musk odor. Furthermore, our theoretical analysis shows that the proposed electron transfer mechanism of the vibrational frequencies of odorants could be easily suppressed by quantum effects of nonodorant molecular vibrational modes. These and other concerns about electron transfer at ORs, together with our extensive experimental data, argue against the plausibility of the vibration theory.olfaction | isotopomers | cyclopentadecanone | muscone | electron transfer I n 1870, the British physician William Ogle wrote: "As in the eye and the ear the sensory impression is known to result not from the contact of material particles given off by the object seen or heard, but from waves or undulations of the ether or the air, one cannot but suspect that the same may be true in the remaining sense, and that the undulatory theory of smell. . . [may be] the true one" (1, 2). Of the 29 different "theories of odour" listed in the 1967 edition of The Chemical Senses (3), nine associate odor with vibrations, particularly those theories championed by Dyson (4, 5) and Wright (6-8). However, the premise that olfaction involves detection of vibrational frequencies of odorants remains highly speculative because neither the structures of the odorant receptors (ORs) nor the binding sites or the activation mechanisms triggered upon odorant binding to ORs have been established. In 1996-1997, Turin (9-12) elaborated on the undulatory theory of smell, as considered in more detail below, and suggested that a mechanism analogous to inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (13) may be involved, where tunneling electrons in the receptor probe the vibrational frequencies of odorants. In 2013, Gane et al. (14) In judging the plausibility...