A biohybrid nose for evaluation of odor masking in the peripheral olfactory system

Olfaction is a synthetic sense in which odor mixtures elicit emergent perceptions at the expense of perceiving the individual components. The most common result of mixing two odors is masking one component by another. However, there is lack of analytical techniques for measuring the sense of smell, which is mediated by cross-odorant interactions. Here, we propose a biohybrid nose for objective and quantitative evaluation of malodor masking efficiency of perfumed products. This biohybrid nose is constructed by integrating mammalian olfactory epithelium with microelectrode array chip to read out the olfactory information as electrical signal from multiple tissue sites. The intrinsic odor response of olfactory epithelium is found to be represented by widespread spatiotemporal oscillatory activity. The masking efficiency of fragrance is quantified by calculating the relative difference between the malodor and the binary mixture (malodor + fragrance) response patterns. Results indicate that masking efficiency of fragrance is concentration-dependent, whereas completely masking may occurs when fragrance is employed at a concentration 2–3 orders of magnitude higher than malodor. This study demonstrates for the first time that capitalizing on the biological sense of smell to create biohybrid system provides an effective technique to resolve more complex biosensing-related issues such as odor interactions in mixtures.