Sixth 'Taste' Discovered - Calcium

[Rum Runner]

For those of you interested in the "Physiology" of taste...Here (http://www.livescience.com/animals/080820-acs-calcium-taste.html) is a link that you may find interesting. Calcium has aways been an important factor in distilling, brewing and wine making

[LCchemist]

Great article. Thanks for posting it!

[forrest]

For those of you interested in the "Physiology" of taste... is a link that you may find interesting.

i loved the article, but even more the article referenced within this article talking about umami (http://www.livescience.com/health/060829_bad_tongue.html).

i don't know why it is always so enjoyable for me to see science 'debunking' science.laughing.gif

[LCchemist]

i don't know why it is always so enjoyable for me to see science 'debunking' science.laughing.gif

That's what science is all about. We can never prove anything. We can only attempt to disprove.

[Bill]

In NE Ohio - my home - we have always been very familiar with "umami". Except that here we say "Yo mama!"

BTW, I have often found a remarkable fleeting impression of roasted calcium in certain fine rums. It is usually evident by a very thin concentric white edge just inside the olive rim associated with aging.

[forrest]

That's what science is all about. We can never prove anything. We can only attempt to disprove.

Spoken like a thinker!

Another thing i enjoy seeing is someone vested in the idiomatic constraints of a career that is eager to SEE the failings, and treat -with honesty- the inharmonious falicies!

i salute you fair Chemist!
and i raise my glass to you!!
Were all scientists' as honest, and open we would not have to face the intellectual (informational?, idealogical?) diaspora that is combatively displayed today-- and what a smarter world we would have.

you rock.gif

[LCchemist]

cheers.gif And as long as I'm on the soapbox I'll say one last thing. Be wary of the media's presentation of "science". They are prone to over-simplification, and sensationalization. Whenever possible go to the source.

[Bill]

And as long as I'm on the soapbox I'll say one last thing. Be wary of the media's presentation of "science". They are prone to over-simplification, and sensationalization. Whenever possible go to the source.

And if you think the media's bad, go to most any discussion website's presentation of anything! But I kid. Let's go to the source:

Umami Responses in Mouse Taste Cells Indicate More than One Receptor

Yutaka Maruyama,1 Elizabeth Pereira,1 Robert F. Margolskee,3 Nirupa Chaudhari,1,2 and Stephen D. Roper1,2

Department of Physiology and Biophysics and 2Program in Neuroscience, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Florida 33136, and Department of Neuroscience, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York 10029

Correspondence should be addressed to S. D. Roper, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, 1600 NW 10th Avenue, Miami, FL 33136. Email: roper@miami.edu

A number of gustatory receptors have been proposed to underlie umami, the taste of L-glutamate, and certain other amino acids and nucleotides. However, the response profiles of these cloned receptors have not been validated against responses recorded from taste receptor cells that are the native detectors of umami taste. We investigated umami taste responses in mouse circumvallate taste buds in an intact slice preparation, using confocal calcium imaging. Approximately 5% of taste cells selectively responded to L-glutamate when it was focally applied to the apical chemosensitive tips of receptor cells. The concentration–response range for L-glutamate fell approximately within the physiologically relevant range for taste behavior in mice, namely 10 mM and above. Inosine monophosphate enhanced taste cell responses to L-glutamate, a characteristic feature of umami taste. Using pharmacological agents, ion substitution, and immunostaining, we showed that intracellular pathways downstream of receptor activation involve phospholipase C beta2. Each of the above features matches those predicted by studies of cloned and expressed receptors. However, the ligand specificity of each of the proposed umami receptors [taste metabotropic glutamate receptor 4, truncated metabotropic glutamate receptor 1, or taste receptor 1 (T1R1) and T1R3 dimers], taken alone, did not appear to explain the taste responses observed in mouse taste cells. Furthermore, umami responses were still observed in mutant mice lacking T1R3. A full explanation of umami taste transduction may involve novel combinations of the proposed receptors and/or as-yet-undiscovered taste receptors.

Now that should clear things up...

[Hank Koestner]

Absolutely! Clear as a bell! g()fyJTR.gifI imagine this will add some interesting highlights to professional tasting notes, now that this has been published in the media.
All fun aside, this is very interesting info.