| description | Protein involved in taste signal transduction. Human perceives five basic taste qualities: bitter, salty, sour, sweet, and umami, the taste of glutamate. Taste perception begins when a taste-eliciting molecule, or tastant, interacts with specialized receptors in the membrane of taste receptor cells. Taste responses to bitter, sweet, and umami compounds are initiated by G-protein-coupled receptors and transduced via G-protein signaling cascades. Salty and sour tastes are transduced by ion channels |
