Our tongue has a taste receptor. The taste receptor T1R3 and the taste G protein gustducin are critical to sweet taste in the tongue.

What is interesting are the new findings by researchers in the Department of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine: those two sweet-sensing proteins in the tongue are also expressed in specialized taste cells of the gut where they sense glucose within the intestine.




According to lead author, Robert F. Margolskee, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience at Mount Sinai School of Medicine:

"We now know that the receptors that sense sugar and artificial sweeteners are not limited to the tongue. Our work is an important advance for the new field of gastrointestinal chemosensation - how the cells of the gut detect and respond to sugars and other nutrients.

Cells of the gut taste glucose through the same mechanisms used by taste cells of the tongue. The gut taste cells regulate secretion of insulin and hormones that regulate appetite. Our work sheds new light on how we regulate sugar uptake from our diets and regulate blood sugar levels.

This work may explain why current artificial sweeteners may not help with weight loss, and may lead to the production of new non-caloric sweeteners to better control weight.

Sensing glucose in the gastrointestinal tract is the first step in regulating blood sugar levels. Having discovered the identity of the gut's sweet receptors may open the way for new treatment options for obesity and diabetes."

The findings - just published online in the August 20th, 2007 "Early Edition" of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - may lead to new treatments for obesity and diabetes.

Find more details from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

[PNAS articles' abstracts: T1R3 and gustducin in gut sense sugars to regulate expression of Na+-glucose cotransporter 1 and Gut-expressed gustducin and taste receptors regulate secretion of glucagon-like peptide-1.]