Taste perception - Sweet and umami receptors

4 important questions on Taste perception - Sweet and umami receptors

In which aspect do sweet and umami receptors resemble the bitter taste receptors?

They are also GPCRs, with the typical 7 trans-membrane helices.

In which 2 aspects do sweet and umami receptors differ from bitter receptors?

  1. The actual receptors are heterodimeric protein assemblies (i.e. A pair of two non-identical proteins)
  2. All T1R receptor proteins consist of two domains:
    1. the 7-helix trans-membrane domain
    2. Venus FlyTrap Domain (VFTD)
which are connected by a cysteine-rich linker peptide

How is the umami receptor formed?

By the T1R1 and T1R3 receptor proteins, which bind to each other to form a functional receptor pair.
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Why is detection of sweetness or umami more complicated than detection of bitterness?

The possible binding of additional modulators, and the fact that the trans-membrane domains can also bind ligands, makes detection of sweetness or umami by T1Rs or TAS1Rs probably more complicated than detection of bitterness by T2Rs, despite the much larger number of bitter receptors.

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