The missense of smell: Functional variability in the human odorant receptor repertoire
Humans have ∼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 have functional differences 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 phenotype variation for the lower-affinity agonists vanillin and ethyl vanillin. © 2014 Nature America, Inc.
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- Neurology & Neurosurgery
- 5202 Biological psychology
- 3209 Neurosciences
- 1702 Cognitive Sciences
- 1701 Psychology
- 1109 Neurosciences
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Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Neurology & Neurosurgery
- 5202 Biological psychology
- 3209 Neurosciences
- 1702 Cognitive Sciences
- 1701 Psychology
- 1109 Neurosciences