The Chemical Space of Flavours

Abstract

The flavour of foods is determined by the interaction of taste molecules with receptors in the mouth, and fragrances or aroma with receptors in the upper part of the nose. Here, we discuss the properties of taste and fragrance molecules, from the public databases Superscent, Flavornet, SuperSweet and BitterDB, taken collectively as flavours, in the perspective of the chemical space. We survey simple descriptor profiles in comparison with the public collections ChEMBL (bioactive small molecules), ZINC (commercial drug-like molecules) and GDB-13 (all possible organic molecules up to 13 atoms of C, N, O, S, Cl). A global analysis of the chemical space of flavours is also presented based on molecular quantum numbers (MQN) and SMILES fingerprints (SMIfp). While taste molecules span a very broad property range, fragrances occupy a narrow area of the chemical space consisting of generally very small and relatively nonpolar molecules distinct of standard drug molecules. Proximity searching in the chemical space is exemplified as a simple method to facilitate the search for new fragrances.