Abstract
l-Theanine is a unique amino acid present in green tea. It elicits umami taste and has a considerable effect on tea taste and quality. We investigated l-theanine activity on the T1R1 + T1R3 umami taste receptor. l-Theanine activated T1R1 + T1R3-expressing cells and showed a synergistic response with inosine 5′-monophosphate. The site-directed mutagenesis analysis revealed that l-theanine binds to l-amino acid binding site in the Venus flytrap domain of T1R1. This study shows that l-theanine elicits an umami taste via T1R1 + T1R3.
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Acknowledgments
The work was supported in part by the Funding Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researchers from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (LS037).
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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M. Narukawa and Y. Toda contributed equally to this work.
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Narukawa, M., Toda, Y., Nakagita, T. et al. l-Theanine elicits umami taste via the T1R1 + T1R3 umami taste receptor. Amino Acids 46, 1583–1587 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-014-1713-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-014-1713-3