| First Author | Wong GT | Year | 1996 |
| Journal | Nature | Volume | 381 |
| Issue | 6585 | Pages | 796-800 |
| PubMed ID | 8657284 | Mgi Jnum | J:36885 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:84298 | Doi | 10.1038/381796a0 |
| Citation | Wong GT, et al. (1996) Transduction of bitter and sweet taste by gustducin [see comments]. Nature 381(6585):796-800 |
| abstractText | Several lines of evidence suggest that both sweet and bitter tastes are transduced via receptors coupled to heterotrimeric guanine-nucleotide-binding proteins (G proteins). Gustducin is a taste receptor cell (TRC)-specific G protein that is closely related to the transducins. Gustducin and rod transducin, which is also expressed in TRCs, have been proposed to couple bitter-responsive receptors to TRC-specific phosphodiesterases to regulate intracellular cyclic nucleotides. Here we investigate gustducin's role in taste transduction by generating and characterizing mice deficient in the gustducin alpha-subunit (alpha-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. |
