Sensory physiology: Bitter success for taste research

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 14 Mar 2005 - 14:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions  

When it comes to our appreciation of food, scientists have succeeded in understanding how the receptors in our mouths pick up on sweet tastes. Now they have identified the role of the membrane proteins responsible for signalling bitterness in taste cells of the tongue. The findings appear in the upcoming issue of Nature (pp 225-229).

A group of special receptors known as T2Rs have been previously implicated in bitter-taste sensitivity, but until now their role remained relatively unclear. To investigate their action, Charles Zuker and his colleagues bred genetically altered mice that lacked T2R receptors. These animals showed a dramatic loss in sensitivity to bitter compounds and so no longer avoided these substances. Thus T2R receptors are both necessary and sufficient to detect bitterness. In addition, mice designed to have a certain type of T2R receptor on their sweet-taste cells actually enjoyed bitter liquids, suggesting that bitter substances tasted sweet to them. This highlights the idea that specific taste cells are tuned to particular tastes, whatever receptors are present.

Reference URL
http://www.nature.com/nature
SOURCE: alphagalileo.org

• Additional
• References
• Citations