Engineered odorant receptors illuminate the basis of odour discrimination

• Published in: Nature (London) 2024-11, Vol.635 (8038), p.499-508
• Main Authors: de March, Claire A., Ma, Ning, Billesbølle, Christian B., Tewari, Jeevan, Llinas del Torrent, Claudia, van der Velden, Wijnand J. C., Ojiro, Ichie, Takayama, Ikumi, Faust, Bryan, Li, Linus, Vaidehi, Nagarajan, Manglik, Aashish, Matsunami, Hiroaki
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 101/28; 13; 14; 14/28; 631/378/2624/2625; 631/45/535/1258/1259; 631/92/552; 82/83; 96; 96/95; Amino acids; Animals; Binding; Carboxylic acids; Conserved sequence; Cryoelectron Microscopy; Electron microscopy; G protein-coupled receptors; Homology; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Life Sciences; Ligands; Microscopy; Models, Molecular; Molecular properties; multidisciplinary; Odorant receptors; Odorants; Odorants - analysis; Odors; Olfaction; Olfactory discrimination; Olfactory discrimination learning; Olfactory system; Physicochemical properties; Protein Binding; Protein Engineering; Proteins; Receptor mechanisms; Receptors; Receptors, Odorant - chemistry; Receptors, Odorant - genetics; Receptors, Odorant - metabolism; Recognition; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Smell - physiology; Structure-odor relationships; Vertebrates
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08126-0

How the olfactory system detects and distinguishes odorants with diverse physicochemical properties and molecular configurations remains poorly understood. Vertebrate animals perceive odours through G protein-coupled odorant receptors (ORs) 1 . In humans, around 400 ORs enable the sense of smell. The OR family comprises two main classes: class I ORs are tuned to carboxylic acids whereas class II ORs, which represent most of the human repertoire, respond to a wide variety of odorants 2 . A fundamental challenge in understanding olfaction is the inability to visualize odorant binding to ORs. Here we uncover molecular properties of odorant–OR interactions by using engineered ORs crafted using a consensus protein design strategy 3 . Because such consensus ORs (consORs) are derived from the 17 major subfamilies of human ORs, they provide a template for modelling individual native ORs with high sequence and structural homology. The biochemical tractability of consORs enabled the determination of four cryogenic electron microscopy structures of distinct consORs with specific ligand recognition properties. The structure of a class I consOR, consOR51, showed high structural similarity to the native human receptor OR51E2 and generated a homology model of a related member of the human OR51 family with high predictive power. Structures of three class II consORs revealed distinct modes of odorant-binding and activation mechanisms between class I and class II ORs. Thus, the structures of consORs lay the groundwork for understanding molecular recognition of odorants by the OR superfamily. Use of the consensus protein design method facilitated the generation of stable engineered mammalian odorant receptors to gain insight into the molecular properties of odorant–receptor interactions.