A team of researchers from the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at San Antonio has found that a fungal-derived compound called pericosine A reacts with skunk-spray secretions and transforms them into odorless products.
Pericosine A did not cause skin or eye irritation and was highly effective at deodorizing skunk-spray secretions when formulated to include adjunctive cosmetic ingredients. Image credit: Skeeze.
Skunks are nocturnal animals that prefer to keep to themselves. However, when they feel threatened, they spray fluids from their anal glands that contain several organosulfur compounds.
Similar to tear gas, the scent is so strong it can cause your eyes to start dripping and make you throw up.
The human nose can detect extremely low concentrations of the nasty-smelling substances, making it difficult to completely rid clothing, hair, fur or skin of the stink.
Various home and commercial remedies claim to neutralize skunk odor, but they often don’t work well or contain skin and eye irritants.
University of Oklahoma’s Dr. Robert Cichewicz and his colleagues wondered if pericosine A could react with and neutralize odoriferous compounds in skunk spray.
To find out, the researchers mixed pericosine A with different organosulfur compounds from skunk spray and analyzed the products of the reactions.
They discovered that the fungal compound reacted with two types of organosulfur compounds — thiols and thioesters — and converted them to stable, odorless products.
Then, they altered the structure of pericosine A and adjusted other ingredients in the reaction to produce a formula that would be safer and more effective for skin application than the original compound.
Finally, they used in vitro eye and skin tests to determine that the fungal compound was non-irritating.
“Our team is continuing to probe the potential applications of pericosines as well as pursue studies aimed at improving routes toward the production of these metabolites,” Dr. Cichewicz and co-authors said.
“The encouraging results obtained for pericosine A and its analogues revealed a promising suite of commercial applications utilizing this robust odor neutralization technology.”
“Further studies examining the activities of additional synthetic pericosines are anticipated to provide inspiration for the creation of a new generation of nontoxic materials engineered to counteract a range of noxious nucleophilic substances.”
The findings appear in the Journal of Natural Products.
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Lin Du et al. 2019. An Electrophilic Natural Product Provides a Safe and Robust Odor Neutralization Approach To Counteract Malodorous Organosulfur Metabolites Encountered in Skunk Spray. J. Nat. Prod 82 (7): 1989-1999; doi: 10.1021/acs.jnatprod.9b00415
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