The taste system beyond taste: a novel path to help understand hunger

Eugeni Roura
Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

The taste system senses the nutritional value of foods. Simple carbohydrates stimulate sweet taste while several L-amino acids (e.g. monosodium glutamate), some peptides and nucleotides trigger umami taste. The bitter taste receptor (TR) family is a big family of receptors (25 to 35 TRs depending on the species) tuned to identify a wide range of anti-nutritional factors and toxic compounds mainly of plant origin to discourage consumption. The seminar reviews our current understanding of “classic” (sweet, salt, sour, bitter, umami) but also novel taste candidates such as Fat or Calcium taste down to the cellular mechanisms involved. However, the main area of taste research nowadays focuses in unraveling the role of taste sensing cells and TR in non-taste tissues such as the mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract. How this diffuse taste system is believed to be involved in monitoring nutrient levels, absorption, homeostasis and potentially the hunger-satiety cycle by interacting with the endocrine system is discussed. How are the so-called “non caloric” sweeteners seen by the gut sensing machinery? The seminar will conclude by highlighting potential novel applications relevant to obesity.