Method for screening of unpleasant odor masking agents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for screening a candidate substance for an unpleasant odor masking agent from among test substances using an olfactory receptor that is responsive to an unpleasant odor-causing substance. The screening method of the present invention includes the steps of: adding a test substance and an unpleasant odor-causing substance to an olfactory receptor polypeptide selected from the group consisting of OR2L3 and polypeptides which comprise an amino acid sequence having at least 80% identity to an amino acid sequence of OR2L3 and are responsive to the unpleasant odor-causing substance; measuring a response of the olfactory receptor polypeptide to the unpleasant odor-causing substance; and identifying the test substance that suppresses the response of the olfactory receptor polypeptide as a candidate substance for the unpleasant odor masking agent based on the measured response.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.