| 2914071 |
Polak EH, Fombon AM, Tilquin C, Punter PH: Sensory evidence for olfactory receptors with opposite chiral selectivity. Behav Brain Res. 1989 Jan 1;31(3):199-206.
Human odor responses to alpha-ionone enantiomers were measured by psycho-physical methods. Surprisingly, subjects' relative sensitivities for these enantiomers were found to diverge widely, some subjects being much more sensitive to (+) than to (-) and vice versa. In 63 subjects the (+)/(-) threshold concentration ratio varied over 4 orders of magnitude. Nine subjects with extreme (+)/(-) ratios were further tested several times over a 7-month period and retained stable ratios. These same nine subjects, when tested for threshold sensitivity to carvone enantiomers, showed (+)/(-) ratios that varied only in a narrow range and did not correlate with their ionone ratios. It is suggested that odor discrimination of alpha-ionone enantiomers involves at least two receptor types of opposite chiral selectivity and that their distribution varies independently in the human population. |
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