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      Umami as an ‘Alimentary’ Taste. A New Perspective on Taste Classification

      review-article
      , , *
      Nutrients
      MDPI
      basic tastes, taste, taste reception, umami

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          Abstract

          Applied taste research is increasingly focusing on the relationship with diet and health, and understanding the role the sense of taste plays in encouraging or discouraging consumption. The concept of basic tastes dates as far back 3000 years, where perception dominated classification with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter consistently featuring on basic taste lists throughout history. Advances in molecular biology and the recent discovery of taste receptors and ligands has increased the basic taste list to include umami and fat taste. There is potential for a plethora of other new basic tastes pending the discovery of taste receptors and ligands. Due to the possibility for an ever-growing list of basic tastes it is pertinent to critically evaluate whether new tastes, including umami, are suitably positioned with the four classic basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, and bitter). The review critically examines the evidence that umami, and by inference other new tastes, fulfils the criteria for a basic taste, and proposes a subclass named ‘alimentary’ for tastes not meeting basic criteria.

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          Most cited references92

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          The receptors and cells for mammalian taste.

          The emerging picture of taste coding at the periphery is one of elegant simplicity. Contrary to what was generally believed, it is now clear that distinct cell types expressing unique receptors are tuned to detect each of the five basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty and umami. Importantly, receptor cells for each taste quality function as dedicated sensors wired to elicit stereotypic responses.
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            Human receptors for sweet and umami taste.

            The three members of the T1R class of taste-specific G protein-coupled receptors have been hypothesized to function in combination as heterodimeric sweet taste receptors. Here we show that human T1R2/T1R3 recognizes diverse natural and synthetic sweeteners. In contrast, human T1R1/T1R3 responds to the umami taste stimulus l-glutamate, and this response is enhanced by 5'-ribonucleotides, a hallmark of umami taste. The ligand specificities of rat T1R2/T1R3 and T1R1/T1R3 correspond to those of their human counterparts. These findings implicate the T1Rs in umami taste and suggest that sweet and umami taste receptors share a common subunit.
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              An amino-acid taste receptor.

              The sense of taste provides animals with valuable information about the nature and quality of food. Mammals can recognize and respond to a diverse repertoire of chemical entities, including sugars, salts, acids and a wide range of toxic substances. Several amino acids taste sweet or delicious (umami) to humans, and are attractive to rodents and other animals. This is noteworthy because L-amino acids function as the building blocks of proteins, as biosynthetic precursors of many biologically relevant small molecules, and as metabolic fuel. Thus, having a taste pathway dedicated to their detection probably had significant evolutionary implications. Here we identify and characterize a mammalian amino-acid taste receptor. This receptor, T1R1+3, is a heteromer of the taste-specific T1R1 and T1R3 G-protein-coupled receptors. We demonstrate that T1R1 and T1R3 combine to function as a broadly tuned L-amino-acid sensor responding to most of the 20 standard amino acids, but not to their D-enantiomers or other compounds. We also show that sequence differences in T1R receptors within and between species (human and mouse) can significantly influence the selectivity and specificity of taste responses.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Nutrients
                Nutrients
                nutrients
                Nutrients
                MDPI
                2072-6643
                16 January 2019
                January 2019
                : 11
                : 1
                : 182
                Affiliations
                Centre for Advanced Sensory Science, School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Deakin University, 1 Gheringhap Street, Geelong 3220, Australia; iehartle@ 123456deakin.edu.au (I.E.H.); gie.liem@ 123456deakin.edu.au (D.G.L.)
                Author notes
                [* ]Correspondence: russell.keast@ 123456deakin.edu.au ; Tel.: +61-3-9244-6944
                Author information
                https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6619-6101
                https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2147-7687
                Article
                nutrients-11-00182
                10.3390/nu11010182
                6356469
                30654496
                249b31eb-8cb3-4929-9b36-b317ee0934ae
                © 2019 by the authors.

                Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

                History
                : 15 December 2018
                : 10 January 2019
                Categories
                Review

                Nutrition & Dietetics
                basic tastes,taste,taste reception,umami
                Nutrition & Dietetics
                basic tastes, taste, taste reception, umami

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