Abstract
TWELVE years ago, Fox1 discovered a curious property of phenylthiocarbamide. He was putting some of the substance into a bottle when a colleague complained of the extremely bitter taste, which Fox himself was unable to confirm. The question was investigated by Blakeslee2, who found that a sample of the American population contained 40 per cent of individuals who were non-tasters. Furthermore, it was found that if two non-tasters married, their children were also non-tasters. The ability to taste (T) is dominant to non-tasting (t), so that parents having the constitution Tt may have non-tasting children; but if one of them is homozygous, Tt, then all the children will be tasters of phenylthiocarbamide. The test has been used as a genetic marker in the investigation of human pedigrees3,4,5.
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References
Fox, A. L., Proc. U.S. Nat. Acad. Sci., 18, 115 (1932).
Blakeslee, A. F., Proc. U.S. Nat. Acad. Sci., 18, 120 (1932).
Boyd, W. C., and Boyd, L. G., Ann. Eugenics, 8, 46 (1937).
Riddell, W. J. B., Trans. Ophth. Soc., 59, 275 (1939).
Riddell, W. J. B., Ann. Eugenics, 10, 1 (1940).
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RIDDELL, W., WYBAR, K. Taste of Thiouracil and Phenylthiocarbamide. Nature 154, 669 (1944). https://doi.org/10.1038/154669a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/154669a0
