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Taste Receptor Cells That Discriminate Between Bitter Stimuli
Alejandro Caicedo,13*Stephen D. Roper124
Recent studies showing that single taste bud cells express multiple
bitter taste receptors have reignited a long-standingcontroversy over
whether single gustatory receptor cells respondselectively or broadly
to tastants. We examined calcium responsesof rat taste receptor cells
in situ to a panel of bitter compoundsto determine whether individual
cells distinguish between bitterstimuli. Most bitter-responsive taste
cells were activated byonly one out of five compounds tested. In taste
cells that respondedto multiple stimuli, there were no significant
associations betweenany two stimuli. Bitter sensation does not appear
to occur throughthe activation of a homogeneous population of broadly
tuned bitter-sensitivetaste cells. Instead, different bitter stimuli
may activate differentsubpopulations of bitter-sensitive taste cells.
1 Department of Physiology and Biophysics,
2 Program in Neuroscience, University of Miami
School of Medicine, 1600 NW 10th Avenue, Miami, FL 33136, USA.
3 Laboratorio de Biofísica, Centro
Internacional de Física, AA 49480, Bogotá, Colombia.
4 Rocky Mountain Taste and Smell Center, Denver, CO
90262, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
acaicedo{at}chroma.med.miami.edu
Gustatory Expression Pattern of the Human TAS2R Bitter Receptor Gene Family Reveals a Heterogenous Population of Bitter Responsive Taste Receptor Cells.
M. Behrens, S. Foerster, F. Staehler, J.-D. Raguse, and W. Meyerhof (2007)
J. Neurosci.
27, 12630-12640
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Individual Differences in Perceived Bitterness Predict Liking of Sweeteners.
Separate Populations of Receptor Cells and Presynaptic Cells in Mouse Taste Buds.
R. A. DeFazio, G. Dvoryanchikov, Y. Maruyama, J. W. Kim, E. Pereira, S. D. Roper, and N. Chaudhari (2006)
J. Neurosci.
26, 3971-3980
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Characterization and Long-Term Maintenance of Rat Taste Cells in Culture.
H. Ozdener, K. K. Yee, J. Cao, J. G. Brand, J. H. Teeter, and N. E. Rawson (2006)
Chem Senses
31, 279-290
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Neural Representation of Bitter Taste in the Nucleus of the Solitary Tract.
