Olfaction is a multi-step process. At a peripheral level, nasal odorant metabolism contributes to olfaction via signal termination, variation, and regulation. We summarize current techniques used to investigate nasal odorant metabolism and give an outlook on future approaches, such as nasal tissue models and their potential contributions in future research directions.
Keywords: aroma perception; enzymes; gas chromatography−mass spectrometry; metabolites; proton transfer reaction−mass spectrometry; regulation; tissue engineering.