Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
TASTE TESTING
(PHENOTYPE) AND
PCR (GENOTYPE)
Donna C. Sullivan, PhD
Division of Infectious Diseases
University of Mississippi Medical Center
FIVE BASIC TASTES
Sweet
Sour
Bitter
Salty
Umami (the taste of monosodium
glutamate).
WHY DO WE HAVE THESE?
Sweet: Identify energy-rich nutrients
Umami: Recognize amino acids
Salt: Ensures proper dietary electrolyte
balance
Sour and bitter: Warn against the intake of
potentially noxious or poisonous chemicals
PHENYLTHIOCARBAMIDE
(PTC) TASTE RECEPTOR
The inability to taste certain compounds is usually
due to simple, recessive Mendelian inheritance.
Dozens of taste and odorant receptors have been
cloned and sequenced in the last 20 years.
The TAS2R28 gene encodes a bitter taste receptor
that enables humans to taste the compound PTC.
The PTC (TAS2R28) gene has a single coding exon, for
a polypeptide chain with 333 amino acids.
PTC taste receptor, continued
Three common single nucleotide polymorphisms
(SNPs) are associated with PTC sensitivity.
Each SNP results in a change to the amino acid
sequence of the PTC receptor.