Molecular mechanisms of caramel-like odorant-olfactory receptor interactions based on a computational chemistry approach.

Shitong Zeng, Lili Zhang, Peng Li, Dandan Pu, Yingjie Fu, Ruiyi Zheng, Hui Xi, Kaina Qiao, Dingzhong Wang, Baoguo Sun, Shihao Sun, Yuyu Zhang

Food research international (Ottawa, Ont.) 2023 Sep

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Molecular mechanisms of caramel-like odorant-olfactory receptor interactions were investigated based on molecular docking and molecular dynamics simulations. The transmembrane regions TM-3, TM-5 and TM-6 of receptors were main contributors of amino acid residues in the docking. Molecular docking results showed that hydrogen bonding and pi-pi stacking were the key forces for the stabilization of caramel-like odorants. The binding energies were positively correlated with the molecular weight of caramel-like odorants. Residues Asn155 (84%, OR2W1), Asn206 (86%, OR8D1), Ser155 (77%, OR8D1), Asp179 (87%, OR5M3), Val182 (84%, OR2J2) and Tyr260 (94%, OR2J2) with high frequencies played an important role in the complexes formation. Odorants 4-hydroxy-5-methylfuran-3(2H)-one (16#) and methylglyoxal (128#) were screened by molecular field-based similarity analysis, which tended to bind to the receptors OR1G1 and OR52H1 respectively, resulting a caramel-like aroma perception. The obtained results are useful for better understanding the perception of caramel-like odorants and their high-throughput screening. Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Citation

Shitong Zeng, Lili Zhang, Peng Li, Dandan Pu, Yingjie Fu, Ruiyi Zheng, Hui Xi, Kaina Qiao, Dingzhong Wang, Baoguo Sun, Shihao Sun, Yuyu Zhang. Molecular mechanisms of caramel-like odorant-olfactory receptor interactions based on a computational chemistry approach. Food research international (Ottawa, Ont.). 2023 Sep;171:113063