Some nerves make direct connections with taste cells, which shed into saliva.

In 1992, his laboratory discovered gustducin, a taste cell expressed G protein.

Several G protein alpha subunits have been identified in taste cells, and are potential candidates for this role.

For salty and sour perception, the taste cell only needs to detect simple ions.

Dr. Roper is delighted to work with the animal because its taste cells are about 100 times larger than those in people.

Their expression data show that receptors for these qualities are expressed in distinct populations of taste cells.

This suggests that the potassium channels would be located in the apical region of the taste cells.

There are taste cells for: sweet, bitter, salty or sour, and umami.

Each taste cell, it turns out, does not act independently, picking up taste messages from the environment and sending them on to the brain.

Pioneered use of living human tissue to characterize human olfactory and taste cell function.

The sense of taste is based on the detection of chemicals by specialized taste cells in the mouth.

There are two kinds of taste cells, receptor cells and basal cells.

Because those ions are electrically charged, the change in their movements sets up a small electrical current in the taste cell.

It is noteworthy that a subset of taste cells does not express IP 3 receptors.

Receptor molecules are found on the apical (on top) microvilli of the taste cells.

When it is rinsed away with liquid, the inhibiting effect is released and the taste cell misinterprets that as a stimulus.

'To me', says Zuker, 'it makes sense that all the bitter receptors would be expressed in each bitter taste cell.

Salts, sweet, sour and umami tastes causes depolarization of the taste cells, although different mechanisms are applied.

Within those taste buds are 50 to 100 taste cells with receptors that detect whether you're eating and send that information to your brain.

There is evidence that the protons that are abundant in sour substances can directly enter the sour taste cells.

These sensors possessed cells analogous to the taste cells on a human tongue and sensed, now, lower salinity in the coastal waters.

Simple stimuli, such as salts and acids depolarize taste cells by direct interaction with apical ion channels.

Much of his current work is focused on 'taste cells of the gut' and 'endocrine cells of the tongue'.

Because the cells are so large, the Colorado researchers can expose individual taste cells to selected taste stimuli and easily record the cells' electrical responses.

Synapses enable taste cells to communicate with their like-minded neighbors as well as with sensory nerve fibers.