Abstract
How we can sense and distinguish thousands of odorants in the external world has been a great mystery. The discovery of the olfactory receptor (OR) gene family in 1991 has elucidated some of the mechanisms underlying the remarkable discriminatory power of the vertebrate olfactory system. The OR family comprises a few hundred to 2000 genes whose products recognize a larger set of odorant molecules that vary in size and shape. Until now, a multiple odorants–multiple receptors combination theory has accounted for the discriminatory mechanism. Here we review the history of the discovery of the OR genes, the evolution of the OR gene family, and the structure and function of ORs in primates and other vertebrate species.
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