Investigation of mouse eugenol olfactory receptor activated by eugenol, vanillin and ethyl vanillin: Steric and energetic characterizations

Steric and energetic characterizations were performed for the adsorption of eugenol (EG), vanillin and ethyl vanillin (EV) onto the mouse eugenol olfactory receptor mOR-EG by using a proposed model expression established by statistical physics methods. We started with a modeling of dose-response curves. The calculated curves fit well the experimental data and the physico-chemical model parameters can be used for the characterization of the interactions between the eugenol, vanillin and ethyl vanillin molecules and the mouse eugenol receptor and the determination of the olfactory band for these three odorant molecules through the determination of the adsorption energy values and the adsorption energy distributions. Furthermore, thermodynamic functions of the odorant adsorption such as the configurational entropy, Gibbs free enthalpy and internal energy were calculated and their negative values indicate that the adsorption process included in the olfaction mechanism was exothermic and spontaneous nature.