An amino-acid taste receptor.
Nature
; 416(6877): 199-202, 2002 Mar 14.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-11894099
ABSTRACT
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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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Receptores de Superfície Celular
/
Receptores Acoplados a Proteínas G
/
Aminoácidos
Limite:
Animals
/
Humans
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2002
Tipo de documento:
Article