The cell biology of taste

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Abstract

Taste buds are aggregates of 50–100 polarized neuroepithelial cells that detect nutrients and other compounds. Combined analyses of gene expression and cellular function reveal an elegant cellular organization within the taste bud. This review discusses the functional classes of taste cells, their cell biology, and current thinking on how taste information is transmitted to the brain.

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Human receptors for sweet and umami taste.

Xiaodong Li, Lena Staszewski, Hong Xu … (2002)

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.

Greg Nelson, Jayaram Chandrashekar, Mark A Hoon … (2002)

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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The receptors for mammalian sweet and umami taste.

Grace Q Zhao, Yifeng Zhang, Mark A Hoon … (2003)

Sweet and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate) are the main attractive taste modalities in humans. T1Rs are candidate mammalian taste receptors that combine to assemble two heteromeric G-protein-coupled receptor complexes: T1R1+3, an umami sensor, and T1R2+3, a sweet receptor. We now report the behavioral and physiological characterization of T1R1, T1R2, and T1R3 knockout mice. We demonstrate that sweet and umami taste are strictly dependent on T1R-receptors, and show that selective elimination of T1R-subunits differentially abolishes detection and perception of these two taste modalities. To examine the basis of sweet tastant recognition and coding, we engineered animals expressing either the human T1R2-receptor (hT1R2), or a modified opioid-receptor (RASSL) in sweet cells. Expression of hT1R2 in mice generates animals with humanized sweet taste preferences, while expression of RASSL drives strong attraction to a synthetic opiate, demonstrating that sweet cells trigger dedicated behavioral outputs, but their tastant selectivity is determined by the nature of the receptors.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): J Cell Biol

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): J. Cell Biol

Journal ID (hwp): jcb

Title: The Journal of Cell Biology

Publisher: The Rockefeller University Press

ISSN (Print): 0021-9525

ISSN (Electronic): 1540-8140

Publication date (Print): 9 August 2010

Volume: 190

Issue: 3

Pages: 285-296

Affiliations

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Program in Neurosciences, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL 33136

Author notes

Correspondence to Nirupa Chaudhari: nchaudhari@ 123456med.miami.edu ; or Stephen D. Roper: sroper@ 123456med.miami.edu

Article

Publisher ID: 201003144

DOI: 10.1083/jcb.201003144

PMC ID: 2922655

PubMed ID: 20696704

SO-VID: e633cb9f-6728-47b0-b05e-9eb8363da570

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This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication date (see http://www.rupress.org/terms). After six months it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

The cell biology of taste

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Abstract

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GLUT4 biology

Most cited references 123

Human receptors for sweet and umami taste.

An amino-acid taste receptor.

The receptors for mammalian sweet and umami taste.

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