ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2015
Implausibility of the vibrational theory of olfaction.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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35 citing papers in PubMed, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Non-Markovian Quantum State Diffusion for the tunnelling in SARS-COVID-19 virus.Computational and structural biotechnology journal · 2025Article
- Insights into the Mechanism of Installation of 5-Carboxymethylaminomethyl Uridine Hypermodification by tRNA-Modifying Enzymes MnmE and MnmG.Journal of the American Chemical Society · 2023Article
- When morphology does not fit the genomes: the case of rodent olfaction.Biology letters · 2023Article
- Quantum tunnelling in the context of SARS-CoV-2 infection.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Vibration-based biomimetic odor classification.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Impact of Deuteration and Temperature on Furan Ring Dynamics.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Sensory Perception of Non-Deuterated and Deuterated Organic Compounds.Chemistry (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) · 2021Article
- Exploring the mechanism of olfactory recognition in the initial stage by modeling the emission spectrum of electron transfer.PloS one · 2020Article
- Differential Expression of Mucins in Murine Olfactory Versus Respiratory Epithelium.Chemical senses · 2019Article
- Is It Possible to Predict the Odor of a Molecule on the Basis of its Structure?International journal of molecular sciences · 2019Review
- Molecular mechanism of activation of human musk receptors OR5AN1 and OR1A1 by (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2018Article
- Carbon chain shape selectivity by the mouse olfactory receptor OR-I7.Organic & biomolecular chemistry · 2018Article
- A Quantum Biomimetic Electronic Nose Sensor.Scientific reports · 2018Article
- Live-cell Measurement of Odorant Receptor Activation Using a Real-time cAMP Assay.Journal of visualized experiments : JoVE · 2017Article
- The Role of Diet in Shaping the Chemical Signal Design of Lacertid Lizards.Journal of chemical ecology · 2017Article
- Validity Examination of the Dissipative Quantum Model of Olfaction.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Experimental evaluation of the generalized vibrational theory of G protein-coupled receptor activation.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
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16 authors at 8 institutions in 2 countries.
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Abstract
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-d30 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.
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