Wysocki C J, Dorries K M, Beauchamp G K
Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1989 Oct;86(20):7976-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.86.20.7976.
Nearly half the adult human population does not perceive an odor when sniffing androstenone (5 alpha-androst-16-en-3-one), a volatile steroid found in human perspiration, boar saliva, some pork products (e.g., bacon), truffles, and celery. This variation in ability to perceive androstenone has a significant heritable component, suggesting that androstenone insensitivity is in part determined genetically. We now report that the ability to perceive androstenone was induced in 10 of 20 initially insensitive subjects who were systematically exposed to androstenone. Since olfactory neurons of the olfactory epithelium undergo periodic replacement from differentiating basal cells, and assuming the induction of sensitivity to be peripheral, we propose that a portion of the apparently anosmic human population does in fact possess olfactory neurons with specific receptors for androstenone. Such neurons may undergo clonal expansion, or selection of lineages with more receptors or receptors of higher affinity, in response to androstenone stimulation, much in the manner of lymphocytes responding to antigenic stimulation, thus raising odor stimulation to the level of conscious perception. As a guide to further study of the genetics and mechanism of variation of androstenone perception, we provisionally envisage three categories of human subjects, the truly anosmic, the inducible, and those subjects who either are constitutionally sensitive or have already experienced incidental induction.
近一半的成年人口在嗅闻雄烯酮（5α-雄甾-16-烯-3-酮）时无法感知到气味。雄烯酮是一种挥发性类固醇，存在于人类汗液、公猪唾液、一些猪肉制品（如培根）、松露和芹菜中。这种感知雄烯酮能力的差异具有显著的遗传成分，这表明对雄烯酮不敏感部分是由基因决定的。我们现在报告，在20名最初不敏感的受试者中，有10名在系统接触雄烯酮后诱导出了感知雄烯酮的能力。由于嗅上皮的嗅觉神经元由分化的基底细胞进行周期性替换，并且假设敏感性的诱导是外周性的，我们提出，一部分明显嗅觉缺失的人群实际上确实拥有带有雄烯酮特异性受体的嗅觉神经元。这类神经元可能会经历克隆性扩增，或者选择具有更多受体或更高亲和力受体的细胞谱系，以响应雄烯酮刺激，这与淋巴细胞对抗原刺激的反应方式非常相似，从而将气味刺激提高到意识感知的水平。作为进一步研究雄烯酮感知遗传学和变异机制的指南，我们初步设想了三类人类受试者：真正嗅觉缺失者、可诱导者，以及那些天生敏感或已经经历过偶然诱导的受试者。
