Chem. Senses 27: 719-727,
2002
© Oxford University Press 2002
Partial Rescue of Taste Responses of 
-Gustducin Null Mice by Transgenic Expression of -Transducin
1 Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1425 Madison Avenue, Box 1677, New York, NY 10029, USA 2 Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1425 Madison Avenue, Box 1677, New York, NY 10029, USA 3 Department of Animal Health and Biomedical Sciences, University of Wisconsin Madison, 1656 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA
Correspondence to be sent to: Sami Damak, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, The Mount Sinai School of Medicine, 1 Gustave L. Levy Place, New York, NY 10029, USA. e-mail: damak{at}inka.mssm.edu
The transduction of responses to bitter and sweet compounds utilizes
guanine nucleotide binding proteins (G proteins) and their coupled receptors.
-Gustducin, a transducin-like G protein -subunit, and rod
-transducin are expressed in taste receptor cells. -Gustducin
knockout mice have profoundly diminished behavioral and electrophysiological
responses to many bitter and sweet compounds, although these mice retain
residual responses to these compounds. -Gustducin and rod
-transducin are biochemically indistinguishable in their in
vitro interactions with retinal phosphodiesterase, rhodopsin and G
protein ß
-subunits. To determine if -transducin can
function in taste receptor cells and to compare the function of
-gustducin versus -transducin in taste transduction in
vivo, we generated transgenic mice that express -transducin under
the control of the -gustducin promoter in the -gustducin null
background. Immunohistochemistry showed that the -transducin transgene
was expressed in about two-thirds of the -gustducin lineage of taste
receptor cells. Two-bottle preference tests showed that transgenic expression
of rod -transducin partly rescued responses to denatonium benzoate,
sucrose and the artificial sweetener SC45647, but not to quinine sulfate.
Gustatory nerve recordings showed a partial rescue by the transgene of the
response to sucrose, SC45647 and quinine, but not to denatonium. These results
demonstrate that -transducin can function in taste receptor cells and
transduce some taste cell responses. Our results also suggest that
-transducin and -gustducin may differ, at least in part, in
their function in these cells, although this conclusion must be qualified
because of the limited fidelity of the transgene expression.
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