Molecular modelling of odorant/olfactory receptor complexes.

Providing a rationale that associates a chemical structure of an odorant to its induced perception has been sought for a long time. To achieve this, a detailed atomic structure of both the odorant and the olfactory receptor must be known. State-of-the-art techniques to model the 3D structure of an olfactory receptor in complex with various odorants are presented here. These range from sequence alignment with known structures to molecular dynamics simulations in a realistic environment.