Ziegler Florian, Behrens Maik
Leibniz-Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany.
Proc Biol Sci. 2021 Mar 31;288(1947):20210418. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2021.0418.
The bitter taste sensation is important to warn mammals of the ingestion of potentially toxic food compounds. For mammals, whose nutrition relies on highly specific food sources, such as blood in the case of vampire bats, it is unknown if bitter sensing is involved in prey selection. By contrast to other bat species, vampire bats exhibit numerous bitter taste receptor pseudogenes, which could point to a decreased importance of bitter taste. However, electrophysiological and behavioural studies suggest the existence of functional bitter taste transmission. To determine the agonist spectra of the three bitter taste receptors that are conserved in all three vampire bat species, we investigated the activation of T2R1, T2R4 and T2R7. Using a set of 57 natural and synthetic bitter compounds, we were able to identify agonists for all three receptors. Hence, we confirmed a persisting functionality and, consequently, a putative biological role of bitter taste receptors in vampire bats. Furthermore, the activation of the human TAS2R7 by metal ions is shown to be conserved in .
苦味感觉对于警告哺乳动物摄入潜在有毒的食物化合物很重要。对于营养依赖高度特定食物来源的哺乳动物，比如吸血蝙蝠以血液为食，苦味感知是否参与猎物选择尚不清楚。与其他蝙蝠物种不同，吸血蝙蝠表现出众多苦味受体假基因，这可能表明苦味的重要性降低。然而，电生理和行为学研究表明存在功能性苦味传递。为了确定在所有三种吸血蝙蝠物种中都保守的三种苦味受体的激动剂谱，我们研究了T2R1、T2R4和T2R7的激活情况。使用一组57种天然和合成苦味化合物，我们能够鉴定出所有三种受体的激动剂。因此，我们证实了苦味受体在吸血蝙蝠中持续存在的功能，以及由此推定的生物学作用。此外，金属离子对人类TAS2R7的激活在……中被证明是保守的。
