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Science 326 (5951): 443-445

Copyright © 2009 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science

The Taste of Carbonation

Jayaram Chandrashekar,1 David Yarmolinsky,1 Lars von Buchholtz,2 Yuki Oka,1 William Sly,3 Nicholas J. P. Ryba,2 Charles S. Zuker1,*,{dagger}

Abstract: Carbonated beverages are commonly available and immensely popular, but little is known about the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the perception of carbonation in the mouth. In mammals, carbonation elicits both somatosensory and chemosensory responses, including activation of taste neurons. We have identified the cellular and molecular substrates for the taste of carbonation. By targeted genetic ablation and the silencing of synapses in defined populations of taste receptor cells, we demonstrated that the sour-sensing cells act as the taste sensors for carbonation, and showed that carbonic anhydrase 4, a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-anchored enzyme, functions as the principal CO2 taste sensor. Together, these studies reveal the basis of the taste of carbonation as well as the contribution of taste cells in the orosensory response to CO2.

1 Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Departments of Neurobiology and Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
2 National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
3 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO 63104, USA.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cz2195{at}columbia.edu

* Present address: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics and Department of Neuroscience, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA.

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