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Sensory systems

Bittersweet symphony

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 6, page 666 (2005)Cite this article

Taste buds are clusters of 50–100 differentiated epithelial cells. Sensory afferent nerve fibres connect each bud to the brain to transmit signals about taste. Only a minority of cells in each bud form synaptic contacts with these fibres, and how other cells send signals to the brain has been the focus of intense academic curiosity.

The researchers believe that neuropeptides might be part of the answer. Having established the role of CCK in taste transduction, they moved on to study other neuropeptides and found that NPY was also expressed in a subset of taste bud cells at both the mRNA and protein levels. This prompted them to test the physiological effects of NPY on taste bud cells isolated from rat tongues.

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References

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Zhao, F. et al. Expression, physiological action, and coexpression patterns of neuropeptide Y in rat taste-bud cells. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 22 July 2005 (10.1073/pnas.0501988102)

FURTHER READING

  1. Mombaerts, P. Genes and ligands for odorant, vomeronasal and taste receptors. Nature Rev. Neurosci. 5, 263–278 (2004)

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Authors
  1. Jane Qiu
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Qiu, J. Bittersweet symphony. Nat Rev Neurosci 6, 666 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1752

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