National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
University of Gastronomic Sciences, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Bra, Pollenzo, CN, Italy.
Chem Senses. 2018 Aug 24;43(7):463-468. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjy037.
It was shown more than 40 years ago that the ability to perceive the bitterness of the fruit of the Antidesma bunius tree is inversely correlated with the ability to perceive the well-studied bitter tastant phenylthiocarbamide (PTC). To determine if variants of the TAS2R38 gene, which encodes the PTC taste receptor, or variants in any of the other TAS2R bitter or TAS1R sweet receptor genes account for Antidesma taste perception, we recruited an independent subject sample and examined associations between these taste receptor gene haplotypes and Antidesma perception. Consistent with previous findings, almost none of our subjects who reported Antidesma juice as bitter was a PTC "responder" by previous definitions (i.e. a PTC taster). In our study, of the 132 individuals who perceived PTC as bitter, 15 perceived Antidesma as bitter, although these 15 subjects had very weak bitterness perception scores. Examination of TAS2R38 gene haplotypes showed that, of the subjects who perceive Antidesma as bitter, all carried at least one copy of the TAS2R38 AVI (PTC non-taster) haplotype. However, 86 subjects carried at least one AVI haplotype and failed to perceive Antidesma as bitter. No other TAS2R or TAS1R gene variants showed an association with Antidesma bitter, sweet, or sour perception. Our results show that TAS2R38 haplotypes are associated with differential perception of Antidesma berry juice bitterness, and that all those who perceive this bitterness carry at least one AVI haplotype. This indicates that the AVI haplotype is necessary for this perception, but that additional variable factors are involved.
四十多年前的研究表明，人们感知苦豆子果实的苦味的能力与感知苯硫脲（PTC）这种苦味物质的能力呈负相关。为了确定编码 PTC 味觉受体的 TAS2R38 基因的变体，或者任何其他 TAS2R 苦味或 TAS1R 甜味受体基因的变体是否可以解释人们对 Antidesma 味道的感知，我们招募了一个独立的受试者样本，并研究了这些味觉受体基因单倍型与 Antidesma 感知之间的关系。与之前的发现一致，在我们的研究中，几乎没有报告 Antidesma 果汁是苦味的受试者之前被定义为 PTC 的“响应者”（即 PTC 味觉者）。在我们的研究中，在 132 名感知到 PTC 苦味的个体中，有 15 名个体感知到 Antidesma 是苦味的，尽管这些个体的苦味感知评分非常低。对 TAS2R38 基因单倍型的研究表明，在那些感知到 Antidesma 苦味的受试者中，所有个体都至少携带一份 TAS2R38 AVI（PTC 非味觉者）单倍型。然而，有 86 名个体携带至少一份 AVI 单倍型，但未能感知到 Antidesma 的苦味。其他 TAS2R 或 TAS1R 基因变体与 Antidesma 的苦味、甜味或酸味感知没有关联。我们的结果表明，TAS2R38 单倍型与 Antidesma 浆果汁苦味的不同感知有关，而所有感知到这种苦味的个体都至少携带一份 AVI 单倍型。这表明 AVI 单倍型是这种感知所必需的，但还涉及其他可变因素。
