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Transduction of bitter and sweet taste by gustducin

Nature volume 381, pages 796–800 (1996)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 10 October 1996

Abstract

SEVERAL lines of evidence suggest that both sweet and bitter tastes are transduced via receptors coupled to heterotrimeric guanine-nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins) (reviewed in refs 1, 2). Gustducin is a taste receptor cell (TRC)-specific G protein that is closely related to the transducins3. Gustducin and rod transducin, which is also expressed in TRCs (ref. 4), have been proposed to couple bitter-responsive receptors to TRC-specific phosphodiesterases to regulate intracellular cyclic nucleotides2–5. Here we investigate gustducin's role in taste transduction by generating and characterizing mice deficient in the gustducin α-subunit (α-gustducin). As predicted, the mutant mice showed reduced behavioural and electrophysiological responses to bitter compounds, whereas they were indistinguishable from wild-type controls in their responses to salty and sour stimuli. Unexpectedly, mutant mice also exhibited reduced behavioural and electrophysiological responses to sweet compounds. Our results suggest that gustducin is a principal mediator of both bitter and sweet signal transduction.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, One Gustave L Levy Place, New York, New York, 10029, USA

    Gwendolyn T. Wong, Kimberley S. Gannon & Robert F. Margolskee

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  1. Gwendolyn T. Wong
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  2. Kimberley S. Gannon
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  3. Robert F. Margolskee
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Wong, G., Gannon, K. & Margolskee, R. Transduction of bitter and sweet taste by gustducin. Nature 381, 796–800 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/381796a0

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