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The Taste of Carbonation

2009; American Association for the Advancement of Science; Volume: 326; Issue: 5951 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1126/science.1174601

1095-9203

Jayaram Chandrashekar, David A. Yarmolinsky, Lars von Buchholtz, Yuki Oka, William S. Sly, Nicholas J. P. Ryba, Charles S. Zuker,

Neurobiology and Insect Physiology Research

Carbonated beverages are commonly available and immensely popular, but little is known about the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the perception of carbonation in the mouth. In mammals, carbonation elicits both somatosensory and chemosensory responses, including activation of taste neurons. We have identified the cellular and molecular substrates for the taste of carbonation. By targeted genetic ablation and the silencing of synapses in defined populations of taste receptor cells, we demonstrated that the sour-sensing cells act as the taste sensors for carbonation, and showed that carbonic anhydrase 4, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored enzyme, functions as the principal CO2 taste sensor. Together, these studies reveal the basis of the taste of carbonation as well as the contribution of taste cells in the orosensory response to CO2.