Towards an understanding of odor blending in odorant mixtures: a pharmacophore approach

National audience; Odors we perceived in our environment are mainly the result of mixtures of odorants. The first step of odor perception is an interaction between these odorant mixtures and olfactory receptors. The corresponding transduced olfactory signals, conveyed by olfactory sensory neurons, are then processed by the brain (Zou et al. 2006). In previous studies, we investigated the perception of a mixture including specific proportions of ethyl isobutyrate (strawberry-like odor) and ethylmaltol (caramel-like odor). This specific mixture was especially judged as more typical of a pineapple odor than the individual components (Coureaud et al. 2008, Le Berre et al. 2008, Coureaud et al. …