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Taste receptors are receptor proteins that recognise ligands belonging to one of the five taste modalities: salty, sweet, bitter, sour and umami. In mammals, taste receptors are found in taste receptor cells on the tongue and in the upper digestive system. Bitter, sweet and umami receptors are G-protein-coupled receptors.
Perception and appreciation of food flavour depends on many factors, posing a challenge for effective prediction. Here, the authors combine extensive chemical and sensory analyses of 250 commercial Belgian beers to train machine learning models that enable flavour and consumer appreciation prediction.
A study reports structures of an insect taste receptor in the absence and presence of different sugars, providing details on the molecular basis of sugar detection and selectivity in insects.
How the larval environment influences the sensory characteristics of the future adult is largely unknown. Here, using Drosophila as a model, the authors show that the presence of certain bacterial species during the larval stage modify the gustatory capacities of the future adult flies.
Genetic comparison of rainforest foraging and neighboring agricultural communities in Uganda and the Philippines shows no distinction in the size of olfactory receptor gene repertoires, but there is evidence for subsistence-related local adaptation.
Using a combined experimental-computational approach, the activation profiles of human and mouse bitter taste receptors, TAS2Rs and Tas2rs, by bile acids is described, suggesting a physiological role of bile acids for taste receptors in non-gustatory tissues.
Neuropod cells in the gut epithelium of mice are sensory transducers for sweet stimuli and mediate the preference for sugar over artificial sweeteners.
The majority of neurons in the geniculate ganglion — which receives inputs from taste receptor cells on the tongue — are singly tuned to a particular taste quality.
