Abstract
Mammals are able to discriminate a vast number of odorants through their sense of smell. In the nasal cavity there are millions of olfactory sensory neurons, which are responsible for this task. Odorants activate odorant receptors that are present in the cilia of the olfactory sensory neurons. The odorant receptors (ORs) belong to the G protein coupled receptor superfamily (GPCRs) and con…