The receptors and coding logic for bitter taste

Ken L. Mueller, Mark A. Hoon, Isolde Erlenbach, Jayaram Chandrashekar, Charles S. Zuker () and Nicholas J. P. Ryba ()
Additional contact information
Ken L. Mueller: University of California at San Diego
Mark A. Hoon: National Institutes of Health
Isolde Erlenbach: National Institutes of Health
Jayaram Chandrashekar: University of California at San Diego
Charles S. Zuker: University of California at San Diego
Nicholas J. P. Ryba: National Institutes of Health

Nature, 2005, vol. 434, issue 7030, 225-229

Abstract: Leaving a bitter taste Almost every naturally occurring toxin tastes bitter, so the ability to detect bitterness is vital to animals as a means of avoiding poisonous substances. The T2R family of receptors, found on the tongue and palate epithelium, are implicated in bitter taste sensing. A combination of genetic, behavioural and physiological studies now confirms that T2R receptors are necessary and sufficient for the detection and perception of bitter compounds. Intriguingly the system can be subverted: bitter can be the new sweet. Mice engineered to express a bitter taste receptor in what are normally ‘sweet’ cells display strong attraction to this family of bitter compounds. So the ‘taste’ of a sweet or a bitter compound is a reflection of how the specific receptors are wired, rather than a property of the receptors or even of the tasted molecules themselves.

Date: 2005
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03352 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:434:y:2005:i:7030:d:10.1038_nature03352

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature03352

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().