Abstract
SEVERAL lines of evidence suggest that both sweet and bitter tastes are transduced via receptors coupled to heterotrimeric guanine-nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins) (reviewed in refs 1, 2). Gustducin is a taste receptor cell (TRC)-specific G protein that is closely related to the transducins3. Gustducin and rod transducin, which is also expressed in TRCs (ref. 4), have been proposed to couple bitter-responsive receptors to TRC-specific phosphodiesterases to regulate intracellular cyclic nucleotides2–5. Here we investigate gustducin's role in taste transduction by generating and characterizing mice deficient in the gustducin α-subunit (α-gustducin). As predicted, the mutant mice showed reduced behavioural and electrophysiological responses to bitter compounds, whereas they were indistinguishable from wild-type controls in their responses to salty and sour stimuli. Unexpectedly, mutant mice also exhibited reduced behavioural and electrophysiological responses to sweet compounds. Our results suggest that gustducin is a principal mediator of both bitter and sweet signal transduction.
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Wong, G., Gannon, K. & Margolskee, R. Transduction of bitter and sweet taste by gustducin. Nature 381, 796–800 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/381796a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/381796a0
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