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Gustation in Fish: Search for Prototype of Taste Perception

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Chemosensory Systems in Mammals, Fishes, and Insects

Part of the book series: Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation ((RESULTS,volume 47))

Abstract

Fish perceive water-soluble chemicals at the taste buds that are distributed on oropharyngeal and trunk epithelia. Recent progress in molecular analyses has revealed that teleosts and mammals share pivotal signaling components to transduce taste stimuli. The fish orthologs of taste receptors, fT1R and fT2R, show mutually exclusive expression in taste buds, and both are coexpressed with phospholipase C-β2 and the transient receptor potential M5 channel as common downstream components of taste receptor signals. Interestingly, fT1R heteromers are activated by various l-amino acids but not by sugars. This may reflects that in fish the energy metabolism depends primarily on gluconeogenesis from amino acids. fT2Rs are activated by denatonium benzoate, which is a bitter substance for mammals. It is thus likely that the preferable and aversive tastes for vertebrates, though their taste modalities somewhat vary, are transduced by the sensory conserved pathways. The comparative molecular biology of the fish taste system would lead to understanding a general logic of encoding taste modalities in vertebrates.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Toshihide Nagai and Yoshiko Aihara for preparing the figures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Engineering, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Maebashi, Gunma, Japan

    A. Yasuoka

  2. Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan

    K. Abe

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  1. A. Yasuoka
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  2. K. Abe
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Correspondence to A. Yasuoka .

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    Yasuoka, A., Abe, K. (2009). Gustation in Fish: Search for Prototype of Taste Perception. In: Korsching, S., Meyerhof, W. (eds) Chemosensory Systems in Mammals, Fishes, and Insects. Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation, vol 47. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/400_2008_6

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