1
|
Yoshida Y, Fujishiro S, Kawai R, Kawabata F. Characterization of taste sensitivities to amino acids and sugars by conditioned taste aversion learning in chickens. Animal 2024; 18:101050. [PMID: 38215678 DOI: 10.1016/j.animal.2023.101050] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/24/2023] [Revised: 11/29/2023] [Accepted: 12/04/2023] [Indexed: 01/14/2024] Open
Abstract
Taste plays an essential role in regulating the feeding behaviors of animals. The present study aimed to characterize the taste sensory profiles of amino acids and sugars in chickens. To achieve this, we employed a conditioned taste aversion learning method, which is characterized by a specific pairing of gastrointestinal malaise and taste perception. Our findings revealed that chickens were able to learn to avoid L-Val, L-Lys, and L-His through conditioned taste aversion learning, and exhibited a strong aversion to L-Arg. These results suggest that chickens are primarily sensitive to basic amino acids, including L-Lys, which is a crucial limiting amino acid in feeds. Interstingly, this sensitivity to basic amino acids in chickens contrasts with humans, who are mainly sensitive to acidic amino acids as umami taste. Furthermore, despite the absence of a mammalian sweet taste receptor gene in the chicken genome, we demonstrated that chickens learned to avoid glucose, galactose, sucrose, and maltose by conditioned taste aversion learning. Taken together, the present study provides the idea that chickens possess a gustatory perception toward specific amino acids and sugars for the detection of beneficial nutrients in their feeds.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Yuta Yoshida
- Department of Food and Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, Ami, Ibaraki 300-0393, Japan.
| | - Shu Fujishiro
- Department of Food and Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, Ami, Ibaraki 300-0393, Japan
| | - Ryota Kawai
- Department of Food and Life Sciences, College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, Ami, Ibaraki 300-0393, Japan
| | - Fuminori Kawabata
- Faculty of Agriculture and Life Science, Hirosaki University, Hirosaki, Aomori 036-8561, Japan; The United Graduate School of Agricultural Sciences, Iwate University, Morioka, Iwate 020-8550, Japan
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Kumar P, Redel U, Lang T, Korsching SI, Behrens M. Bitter taste receptors of the zebra finch ( Taeniopygia guttata). Front Physiol 2023; 14:1233711. [PMID: 37860623 PMCID: PMC10582322 DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1233711] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2023] [Accepted: 09/20/2023] [Indexed: 10/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Despite the important role of bitter taste for the rejection of potentially harmful food sources, birds have long been suspected to exhibit inferior bitter tasting abilities. Although more recent reports on the bitter recognition spectra of several bird species have cast doubt about the validity of this assumption, the bitter taste of avian species is still an understudied field. Previously, we reported the bitter activation profiles of three zebra finch receptors Tas2r5, -r6, and -r7, which represent orthologs of a single chicken bitter taste receptor, Tas2r1. In order to get a better understanding of the bitter tasting capabilities of zebra finches, we selected another Tas2r gene of this species that is similar to another chicken Tas2r. Using functional calcium mobilization experiments, we screened zebra finch Tas2r1 with 72 bitter compounds and observed responses for 7 substances. Interestingly, all but one of the newly identified bitter agonists were different from those previously identified for Tas2r5, -r6, and -r7 suggesting that the newly investigated receptor fills important gaps in the zebra finch bitter recognition profile. The most potent bitter agonist found in our study is cucurbitacin I, a highly toxic natural bitter substance. We conclude that zebra finch exhibits an exquisitely developed bitter taste with pronounced cucurbitacin I sensitivity suggesting a prominent ecological role of this compound for zebra finch.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Praveen Kumar
- Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
| | - Ulrike Redel
- German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany
| | - Tatjana Lang
- Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
| | | | - Maik Behrens
- Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany
- German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Niknafs S, Navarro M, Schneider ER, Roura E. The avian taste system. Front Physiol 2023; 14:1235377. [PMID: 37745254 PMCID: PMC10516129 DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1235377] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/06/2023] [Accepted: 08/30/2023] [Indexed: 09/26/2023] Open
Abstract
Taste or gustation is the sense evolving from the chemo-sensory system present in the oral cavity of avian species, which evolved to evaluate the nutritional value of foods by detecting relevant compounds including amino acids and peptides, carbohydrates, lipids, calcium, salts, and toxic or anti-nutritional compounds. In birds compared to mammals, due to the relatively low retention time of food in the oral cavity, the lack of taste papillae in the tongue, and an extremely limited secretion of saliva, the relevance of the avian taste system has been historically undermined. However, in recent years, novel data has emerged, facilitated partially by the advent of the genomic era, evidencing that the taste system is as crucial to avian species as is to mammals. Despite many similarities, there are also fundamental differences between avian and mammalian taste systems in terms of anatomy, distribution of taste buds, and the nature and molecular structure of taste receptors. Generally, birds have smaller oral cavities and a lower number of taste buds compared to mammals, and their distribution in the oral cavity appears to follow the swallowing pattern of foods. In addition, differences between bird species in the size, structure and distribution of taste buds seem to be associated with diet type and other ecological adaptations. Birds also seem to have a smaller repertoire of bitter taste receptors (T2Rs) and lack some taste receptors such as the T1R2 involved in sweet taste perception. This has opened new areas of research focusing on taste perception mechanisms independent of GPCR taste receptors and the discovery of evolutionary shifts in the molecular function of taste receptors adapting to ecological niches in birds. For example, recent discoveries have shown that the amino acid taste receptor dimer T1R1-T1R3 have mutated to sense simple sugars in almost half of the living bird species, or SGLT1 has been proposed as a part of a T1R2-independent sweet taste sensing in chicken. The aim of this review is to present the scientific data known to date related to the avian taste system across species and its impact on dietary choices including domestic and wild species.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Shahram Niknafs
- Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
| | - Marta Navarro
- Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
| | - Eve R. Schneider
- Department of Biology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, United States
| | - Eugeni Roura
- Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Cramer JF, Miller ET, Ko MC, Liang Q, Cockburn G, Nakagita T, Cardinale M, Fusani L, Toda Y, Baldwin MW. A single residue confers selective loss of sugar sensing in wrynecks. Curr Biol 2022; 32:4270-4278.e5. [PMID: 35985327 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.059] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2022] [Revised: 07/01/2022] [Accepted: 07/21/2022] [Indexed: 12/14/2022]
Abstract
Sensory receptors evolve, and changes to their response profiles can directly impact sensory perception and affect diverse behaviors, from mate choice to foraging decisions.1-3 Although receptor sensitivities can be highly contingent on changes occurring early in a lineage's evolutionary history,4 subsequent shifts in a species' behavior and ecology may exert selective pressure to modify and even reverse sensory receptor capabilities.5-7 Neither the extent to which sensory reversion occurs nor the mechanisms underlying such shifts is well understood. Using receptor profiling and behavioral tests, we uncover both an early gain and an unexpected subsequent loss of sugar sensing in woodpeckers, a primarily insectivorous family of landbirds.8,9 Our analyses show that, similar to hummingbirds10 and songbirds,4 the ancestors of woodpeckers repurposed their T1R1-T1R3 savory receptor to detect sugars. Importantly, whereas woodpeckers seem to have broadly retained this ability, our experiments demonstrate that wrynecks (an enigmatic ant-eating group sister to all other woodpeckers) selectively lost sugar sensing through a novel mechanism involving a single amino acid change in the T1R3 transmembrane domain. The identification of this molecular microswitch responsible for a sensory shift in taste receptors provides an example of the molecular basis of a sensory reversion in vertebrates and offers novel insights into structure-function relationships during sensory receptor evolution.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Julia F Cramer
- Evolution of Sensory Systems Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany
| | - Eliot T Miller
- Macaulay Library, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA
| | - Meng-Ching Ko
- Evolution of Sensory Systems Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany
| | - Qiaoyi Liang
- Evolution of Sensory Systems Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany
| | - Glenn Cockburn
- Evolution of Sensory Systems Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany
| | - Tomoya Nakagita
- Department of Agricultural Chemistry, School of Agriculture, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 214-8571, Japan; Proteo-Science Center, Ehime University, Matsuyama, Ehime 790-8577, Japan
| | - Massimiliano Cardinale
- Department of Aquatic Resources, Institute of Marine Research, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 453 30 Lysekil, Sweden
| | - Leonida Fusani
- Austrian Ornithological Centre, Konrad-Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, 1160 Wien, Austria; Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, 1160 Wien, Austria
| | - Yasuka Toda
- Department of Agricultural Chemistry, School of Agriculture, Meiji University, Kawasaki, Kanagawa 214-8571, Japan
| | - Maude W Baldwin
- Evolution of Sensory Systems Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, 82319 Seewiesen, Germany.
| |
Collapse
|