Individual olfactory perception reveals meaningful nonolfactory genetic information

Lavi Secundoa*, Kobi Snitz, Kineret Weissler, Liron Pinchover, Yehuda Shoenfeld, Ron Loewenthal, Nancy Agmon-Levin, Idan Frumin, Dana Bar-Zvi, Sagit Shushan, Noam Sobel

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

45 Scopus citations

Abstract

Each person expresses a potentially unique subset of ∼400 different olfactory receptor subtypes. Given that the receptors we express partially determine the odors we smell, it follows that each person may have a unique nose; to capture this, we devised a sensitive test of olfactory perception we termed the "olfactory fingerprint." Olfactory fingerprints relied on matrices of perceived odorant similarity derived from applied to the odorants. We initially finger-printed 89 individuals using 28 odors and 54 . We found that each person had a unique olfactory fingerprint (P < 10-10), which was odor specific but independent. We could identify individuals from this pool using randomly selected sets of 7 odors and 11 alone. Extrapolating from this data, we determined that using 34 odors and 35 we could individually identify each of the 7 billion people on earth. Olfactory perception, however, fluctuates over time, calling into question our proposed perceptual readout of presumably stable genetic makeup. To test whether fingerprints remain informative despite this temporal fluctuation, building on the linkage between olfactory receptors and HLA, we hypothesized that olfactory perception may relate to HLA. We obtained olfactory fingerprints and HLA typing for 130 individuals, and found that olfactory fingerprint matching using only four odorants was significantly related to HLA matching (P < 10-4), such that olfactory fingerprints can save 32% of HLA tests in a population screen (P < 10-6). In conclusion, a precise measure of olfactory perception reveals meaningful nonolfactory genetic information.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8750-8755
Number of pages6
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume112
Issue number28
DOIs
StatePublished - 14 Jul 2015

Funding

FundersFunder number
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme670798

    Keywords

    • Autoimmunity
    • HLA
    • MHC
    • Olfactory genetics
    • Olfactory perception

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