An improved colorimetric method for determination of cyanide content in bitter almond oil was developed. The optimal determination parameters were as follows: volume ratio of hydrochloric acid to bitter almond oil (v/v), 1.5:1; holding time for hydrolysis, 120 min; and volume ratio of distillation solution to bitter almond oil (v/v), 8:1. Analytical results showed that the relative standard dev...

The recent discovery of mammalian bitter, sweet, and umami taste receptors indicates how the different taste qualities are encoded at the periphery. However, taste representations in the brain remain elusive. We used a genetic approach to visualize the neuronal circuitries of bitter and sweet tastes in mice to gain insight into how taste recognition is accomplished in the brain. By selectively ...

Bitter taste stimuli are detected by a diverse family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed in gustatory cells. Each bitter taste receptor (TAS2R) responds to an array of compounds, many of which are toxic and can be found in nature. For example, human TAS2R16 (hTAS2R16) responds to β-glucosides such as salicin, and hTAS2R38 responds to thiourea-containing molecules such as glucosino...

Apple growers, private consultants, and extension specialists have all noted that bitter rot is increasingly common and is causing sporadic but economically significant losses throughout the northeastern and north central apple growing regions of North America. Forty years ago, bitter rot was considered a “southern disease” and apples with bitter rot were rarely observed in northern production ...

Treatment compliance is reduced when pharmaceutical compounds have a bitter taste and this is particularly marked for paediatric medications. Identification of bitter taste liability during drug discovery utilises the rat in vivo brief access taste aversion (BATA) test which apart from animal use is time consuming with limited throughput. We investigated the suitability of using a simple, non-a...

Human bitter taste is mediated by the hTAS2R family of G protein-coupled receptors. The discovery of the hTAS2Rs enables the potential to develop specific bitter receptor antagonists that could be beneficial as chemical probes to examine the role of bitter receptor function in gustatory and nongustatory tissues. In addition, they could have widespread utility in food and beverages fortified wit...

The toxic mushroom Naematoloma fasciculare contains several bitter components . The toxicity to mice, which was located in the water-soluble fraction , was estimated to be 2MU/g of the raw sample. On the other hand, the bitter components were detected only in the fat-soluble fraction, indicating that the bitter components are not responsible for the toxicity . Isolation of one of the bitter com...

Bitter is a taste modality associated with toxic substances evoking aversive behaviour in most animals, and the valence of different taste modalities is conserved between mammals and Drosophila. Despite knowledge gathered in the past on the peripheral perception of taste, little is known about the identity of taste interneurons in the brain. Here we show that hugin neuropeptide-containing neuro...

Drosophila melanogaster can taste various compounds and separate them into few basic categories such as sweet, bitter and salt taste. Here we investigate mechanisms underlying acid detection in Drosophila and report that the fly displays strong taste aversion to common carboxylic acids. We find that acid tastants act by the activation of a subset of bitter neurons and inhibition of sweet neuron...

In comparison to cocoa, little has been reported on the drying of cupuassu almonds that can be used produce cupulate, a chocolate type product. Thus, in this study thermophysical properties dry (moisture = 9.68 % d.b.) were determined as: thermal conductivity (k) 0.14 kW/(m.K), specific heat (cp) 2.86 kJ/(kg.K), diffusivity (?) 4.8·10-5 m²/s, effective (Deff) 9.94·10-10 - 6.29·10-10 m²/s and ac...