Know we know how we taste sour foods

Posted by jhayrocas on 08.27.2006
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Greetings everyone! I’m jhay and honestly I don’t know how to properly introduce my self as a new contributor for the Science blog here at gameshogun.ws :>> I’ll just wait for Laibeus Lord to introduce me here formally so as to make things easier for me, and not get in the way of why I’m here; to blog about science and all things geeky here at gameshogun. :>> Alright then, on with my very first post/column.

Scientists have recently discovered the receptor that tells us mammals whether the food or whatever substance in our mouth is, is sour or not.

The tastes in mammals are classified as sweet,salty, bitter, sour and umami (the taste of monosodium glutamate or MSG). However, we have not been able to identify the taste recepetors for sour and salty tastes until now. Research by Charles Zuker of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in San Diego have identified the protein PKD2L1 as a primary candidate.

Follow up:

To check on the action of PKD2L1, the team created genetically engineered mice that produced a toxin in cells expressing PKD2L1, killing these cells. Probes placed inside the mouse brains then showed that no neural activity was prompted by sour-tasting foods in these mice, they report in Nature1. And their behaviour changed to match: they kept licking sour foods, whereas normal mice would run away from acidic snacks (only humans have a taste for sour foods; other animals avoid them).

This is convincing evidence but more research is needed to fully confirm this discovery and so that scientists can move on to look for the salty taste receptor which is still unidentified today.

‘Tasty’ research going on here huh?

But there’s an interesting note, read again the text that I higlighted above with the lightbulb. We humans are “the only organisms that has a taste for sour foods?“

Very interesting indeed, and a good topic for my next column later on this week. So until then, do check back here at gameshogun.ws or you could visit my own blog, the Pinoy Explorer for more sci-tech stuf from yours truly.