The Muskiest Musk

Some of our long-standing work studying the effects of CF2 groups on the conformation of medium rings has just been published in PNAS, in collaboration with Eric Block’s group.  One of the highlights for us, is the identification of the ‘Muskiest Musk’ molecule (shown on the right).  This molecule (structure 34 in the paper) illicted the highest ever response for a musk ketone against the human odorant receptor OR5AN1 using an in vitro assay.

Michael, Qingzhi, Mingyan and Rodrigo were all involved in aspects of this work, which you can read more about in PNAS 10.1073/pnas.1713026115