Recent advances in taste transduction and signaling - PubMed (original) (raw)

Review

Recent advances in taste transduction and signaling

Sue C Kinnamon et al. F1000Res. 2019.

Abstract

In the last few years, single-cell profiling of taste cells and ganglion cells has advanced our understanding of transduction, encoding, and transmission of information from taste buds as relayed to the central nervous system. This review focuses on new knowledge from these molecular approaches and attempts to place this in the context of previous questions and findings in the field. The individual taste cells within a taste bud are molecularly specialized for detection of one of the primary taste qualities: salt, sour, sweet, umami, and bitter. Transduction and transmitter release mechanisms differ substantially for taste cells transducing sour (Type III cells) compared with those transducing the qualities of sweet, umami, or bitter (Type II cells), although ultimately all transmission of taste relies on activation of purinergic P2X receptors on the afferent nerves. The ganglion cells providing innervation to the taste buds also appear divisible into functional and molecular subtypes, and each ganglion cell is primarily but not exclusively responsive to one taste quality.

Keywords: geniculate ganglion; nervous system; purinergic transmission; serotonin; signalling; taste; taste bud; transduction.

Copyright: © 2019 Kinnamon SC and Finger TE.

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Conflict of interest statement

No competing interests were disclosed.No competing interests were disclosed.No competing interests were disclosed.

Figures

Figure 1.

Figure 1.. Cell types in taste buds.

Four different morphological and molecularly distinct types of cells populate taste buds. Types II and III transduce different classes of tastes, whereas Type I cells are more glial-like. Type IV cells are the immature population, which develop into the other cell types over the span of a few days. Figure generated from data in .

Figure 2.

Figure 2.. Taste transduction cascades.

Transduction pathways for the two different types of taste-transducing cells: Type III for sour and Type II for sweet, bitter, or umami. The different responsiveness of Type II cells is dictated by the type of receptor each cell expresses, not by downstream members of the transduction cascade. AtypMito, atypical mitochondria; ER, endoplasmic reticulum; Gα, alpha subunit of G protein; Gβγ, beta-gamma subunits of G protein; IP3, inositol trisphosphate; IP3R3, inositol trisphosphate receptor isoform 3; PLCβ2, phospholipase C isoform β2; TRPM5, transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily M member 5; VGCC, voltage-gated calcium channel; VG-Na+, voltage-gated sodium channel.

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