Department of Food Science & Technology, School of Agriculture & Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
Department of Food Science & Technology, School of Agriculture & Biology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China; College of Food Science & Technology, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, 201306, China.
Biosens Bioelectron. 2022 Feb 1;197:113780. doi: 10.1016/j.bios.2021.113780. Epub 2021 Nov 12.
Taste signals are uniformly encoded and transmitted to the brain's taste center by taste buds, and the process has not been systematically studied for several decades. The aim of this work was to investigate the distribution of umami receptors on the tongue and its signal coding logic based on the taste bud biosensors. Taste bud biosensors were constructed by immobilizing the taste bud tissues from different tongue regions of the rabbit to the glassy carbon electrode surface; The Shennong information equations were used to analysis the pattern of umami receptors to encode ligands information; The signal amplification capabilities of two types umami receptors (T1R1/T1R3 and mGluRs) were analyzed for the two ligands (L-monosodium glutamate (MSG) and disodium 5'-inosinate (IMP)). The results showed that each taste bud biosensor could sense MSG and IMP with different response currents based on enzyme-substrate kinetics. There was only a small fraction of a great quantity of metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs) could be activated to encode MSG signal. Importantly, T1R1 was more expressed in the rostral tongue cells whose sensitivity to MSG was nearly 100 times stronger than that of caudal tongue cells. The method we proposed made it possible to reveal the distribution and signals coding logic of umami receptors for ligands, which showed great potential to explain the interaction mechanism of umami substances with their receptors more accurately and to develop of artificial intelligent taste sensory.
味觉信号由味蕾均匀编码并传输到大脑的味觉中枢，几十年来，这一过程尚未得到系统研究。本工作旨在基于味蕾生物传感器研究鲜味受体在舌头上的分布及其信号编码逻辑。通过将来自不同舌区的味蕾组织固定在玻碳电极表面，构建味蕾生物传感器；利用 Shennong 信息方程分析鲜味受体对配体信息的编码模式；分析两种鲜味受体（T1R1/T1R3 和 mGluRs）对两种配体（L-单谷氨酸钠（MSG）和 5'-次黄嘌呤核苷酸二钠（IMP））的信号放大能力。结果表明，每个味蕾生物传感器都可以基于酶底物动力学，以不同的响应电流感应 MSG 和 IMP。只有一小部分大量代谢型谷氨酸受体（mGluRs）可以被激活以编码 MSG 信号。重要的是，T1R1 在舌前部细胞中表达更多，对 MSG 的敏感性比舌后部细胞强近 100 倍。我们提出的方法使得揭示鲜味受体对配体的分布和信号编码逻辑成为可能，这为更准确地解释鲜味物质与其受体的相互作用机制以及开发人工智能味觉传感器提供了巨大潜力。
