Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Centre could help scientists dramatically increase their understanding of the sense of taste. The novel approach used by the team was growing mature taste receptor cells in vitro and successfully keeping them alive for a prolonged period of time: they obtained basal cells from rat taste buds and placed these cells in a tissue culture system containing nutrients and growth factors where the basal cells divided and differentiated into functional taste cells.

The new grown cells which were kept alive for up to two months, were similar to mature taste cells in several key respects. Later, a variety of methods were used to show that the cultured cells contain unique marker proteins characteristic of mature functioning taste receptor cells.

By using the cultured taste cells, researchers now have more precise control over the cell's surrounding environment, as well as better access to subcellular mechanisms, allowing them to ask certain questions that could not previously be addressed. For instance, cultured cells can be used to study how taste stimuli interact to enhance good tastes or suppress unpleasant tastes.

This novel procedure may be useful as a tool in developing and evaluating new potential artificial sweeteners or bitter blockers, relative to their interaction with taste receptors.

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