Kasahara Yoichi, Narukawa Masataka, Saito Yoshikazu, Abe Keiko, Asakura Tomiko
Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
Department of Food and Nutrition, Kyoto Women's University, Kyoto, Japan.
Front Mol Neurosci. 2024 Sep 25;17:1468438. doi: 10.3389/fnmol.2024.1468438. eCollection 2024.
Although salt is an essential substance vital to life, excessive salt intake could cause various health issues. Therefore, new technologies and strategies should be developed to reduce salt intake without compromising taste. However, the underlying physiological mechanisms of salt taste reception is complex and not completely understood. Sodium chloride is a typical salty substance. It is widely believed that only sodium is important for the generation of salty taste. On the other hand, from a psychophysical perspective, the importance of chloride in salty taste has been indicated. Thus, understanding the mechanisms of both sodium- and chloride-tastes generation is necessary to completely comprehended the fundamentals of salt taste reception. However, the mechanism for detecting chloride taste has remained unclear for many years. Recently, we have identified transmembrane channel-like 4 (TMC4) as the first molecule that mediates the reception of chloride taste. TMC4 functions as a voltage-dependent chloride channel and plays an important role in the reception of the chloride taste by detecting chloride ions. In this mini-review, we first introduce the known reception mechanism of salty taste, and then discuss the roles of TMC4 in the salt taste reception. The finding of TMC4 may serve as a basis for developing new technologies and formulating strategies to reduce salt intake without compromising taste.
尽管盐是生命必需的物质，但过量摄入盐可能会引发各种健康问题。因此，应该开发新技术和策略来减少盐的摄入量，同时又不影响口感。然而，盐味感知的潜在生理机制很复杂，尚未完全被理解。氯化钠是一种典型的咸味物质。人们普遍认为只有钠离子对咸味的产生很重要。另一方面，从心理物理学的角度来看，氯离子在咸味中的重要性也已得到证实。因此，要完全理解盐味感知的基本原理，就有必要了解钠离子和氯离子味道产生的机制。然而，多年来检测氯离子味道的机制一直不清楚。最近，我们已经确定跨膜通道样蛋白4（TMC4）是介导氯离子味道感知的首个分子。TMC4作为一种电压依赖性氯离子通道，通过检测氯离子在氯离子味道感知中发挥重要作用。在这篇小型综述中，我们首先介绍已知的咸味感知机制，然后讨论TMC4在盐味感知中的作用。TMC4的发现可能为开发新技术和制定在不影响口感的情况下减少盐摄入量的策略奠定基础。
