Genetic mutation makes fermented fish less stinky

Abstract

Fermented fish is notorious for its foul odor, but some people can easily stomach the stench of trimethylamine . That may be thanks to a genetic mutation. A genome-wide association study led by Rósa Gísladóttir and Kári Stefánsson from deCODE Genetics turned up a variant of a trace amine olfactory receptor protein called TAAR5. The team asked more than 11,000 Icelanders to smell a sample of trimethylamine and describe its aroma. The reserachers found that people with a single missense mutation in the TAAR5 gene were less likely to associate a waft of trimethylamine with fermented shark or skate—if they could detect the rotten-smelling amine at all ( Curr. Biol. 2020, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.012 ). Though the mutation is found in only a small subset of the population, further analysis shows that the TAAR5 variant is more common in Icelanders than in people from Sweden, Southern Europe, and Africa. Fermented fish