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Evolution and Senses pp 23–34Cite as

Bitter Taste Receptors of Primates

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Abstract

Bitter taste perception is a key detection mechanism acting to protect animals against the ingestion of bioactive molecules. Recent progress in the analysis of human bitter taste receptors, TAS2Rs, revealed the molecular basis of our bitter taste sensation. Although humans don’t depend solely on the taste to protect against harmful bioactive molecules, but also use some detoxifying tools against them, it is important to investigate bitter taste receptors of wild primates to understand the evolution and biological roles of bitter taste sensation. In this chapter, I will review the recent progress in the analysis of bitter taste receptors of primates and discuss the evolutionary aspects of these receptors. At the population level, the importance of diversity in the species is suggested by the evolutionary analysis of chimpanzee TAS2Rs. Within a species, we found that some geographical region-­specific mutation of TAS2R occurs and is maintained in Japanese macaques, as shown by genomic screening, biochemical assay, and behavioral test. Regarding the species differences, we proposed the idea that bitter taste receptors of each species show a specific pattern of sensitivities to natural ligands, suggesting the important role of amino acid changes in the course of evolution of TAS2Rs. These observations clarify some aspects of the molecular evolutionary history of TAS2Rs in wild primates.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Ms. N. Suzuki, Mr. T. Hayakawa, Drs. T. Sugawara, Y. Go, A. Matsui, and H. Hirai, in the Molecular Biology Section, the Kyoto University Primate Research Institute, for valuable discussions and Drs. Y. Ishimaru, T. Misaka, and K. Abe of the University of Tokyo for cooperation in functional analysis of TAS2Rs. I also thank Dr. E. Nakajima for English correction. Our work was financially supported by Global COE program A06 and by Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology of Japan (2137009, 22247036, 22650053), and from the Ministry of the Environment (D-1007) and grants from the Takeda Foundation for Science and the Suzuken Memorial Foundation to H.I.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biophysics, Graduate School of Science Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Yoshinori Shichida & Takahiro Yamashita

  2. Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University, Inuyama, Aichi, 484-8506, Japan

    Hiroo Imai

  3. Department of Zoology, Graduate School of Science Kyoto University, Kyoto, 606-8502, Japan

    Takushi Kishida

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  1. Yoshinori Shichida
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Shichida, Y., Yamashita, T., Imai, H., Kishida, T. (2013). Bitter Taste Receptors of Primates. In: Evolution and Senses. SpringerBriefs in Biology. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54222-3_2

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