ions and is widely used to determine the activity and concentration of hydrogen ions. Metal ion-selective electrodes, such as potassium ions and calcium ions, are also commercially available. Drug ion selective electrodes are prepared and are used to determine the concentrations of drug ions. Other applications of drug ion electrodes include studies of protein binding of drug ions, mechanisms o...

Bitter taste receptors and signaling molecules, which detect bitter taste in the mouth, are expressed in the gut mucosa. In this study, we tested whether two distinct bitter taste receptors, the bitter taste receptor 138 (T2R138), selectively activated by isothiocyanates, and the broadly tuned bitter taste receptor 108 (T2R108) are regulated by luminal content. Quantitative RT-PCR analysis show...

The aim of this study was to determine if taste interactions occur when bitter stimuli are mixed. Eight bitter stimuli were employed: Denatonium benzoate (DB), (L-phe), Ranitidine-HCl, and Tetralone®. The first experiment constructed individual psychophysical curves for each subject (n=19) for each compound to account for individual differences in sensitivities when presenting bitter compounds ...

Taste plays a crucial role in the life of honey bees as their survival depends on the collection and intake of nectar and pollen, and other natural products. Here we studied the tarsal taste of honey bees through a series of behavioral and electrophysiological analyses. We characterized responsiveness to various sweet, salty and bitter tastants delivered to gustatory sensilla of the fore tarsi....

The sense of taste is critical in determining the nutritional suitability of foods. Sweet and bitter are primary taste modalities in mammals, and their behavioral relevance is similar in flies. Sweet taste drives the appetitive response to energy sources, whereas bitter taste drives avoidance of potential toxins and also suppresses the sweet response [1, 2]. Despite their importance to survival...

BACKGROUND Bitter taste is the primary culprit for rejection of pediatric liquid medications. We probed the underlying biology of bitter sensing and the efficacy of two known bitter blockers in children and adults. METHODS A racially diverse group of 154 children (3-10 years old) and their mothers (N = 118) evaluated the effectiveness of two bitter blockers, sodium gluconate (NaG) and monosod...

Food contains complex blends of structurally diverse bitter compounds that trigger bitterness through activation of one or more of the ∼25 human TAS2 bitter taste receptors. It remains unsolved, however, whether the perceived bitterness of binary bitter-compound mixtures can be considered an additive function of all bitter-inducing chemicals in the mouth, suggesting that little mutual interacti...