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Chemical Senses 5: 149-158,
© 1980

research-article

A biphasic model for action of the gymnemic acids and ziziphins on taste receptor cell membranes*

Linda M. Kennedy** and Bruce P. Halpern

Department of Psychology, Harvard University Cambridge, MA 02138 Department of Psychology, Cornell University Ithaca NY 14853, USA 1Department of Psychology and Section of Neurobiology and Behavior, Division of Biological Sciences, Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.

A biphasic membrane penetration process for the action of the gymnemic acids and ziziphins on taste receptor cells is proposed. According to this model, the penetrating modifier molecules interact first, with the receptor cell plasma membrane surface and second, with the lipid interior of the membrane. The initial interaction is postulated to involve a selective effect on processes functional in the transduction and quality specification of a sweet stimulus and the second interaction to involve a general disruption of membrane function and nonselective effect on taste perception. This biphasic model can account for available chemical, physiological and psyebophysical data, and it makes explicit predictions which can be tested in future experiments. If the model holds, it has important implications for the design and interpretation of psychophysical, neurophysiological and chemical experiments that use the gymnemic acids and ziziphins as tools to study taste perception. Moreover if the model holds, it places at least one process involved in the specification of a sweet stimulus at the surface of the receptor cell membrane.

*An earlier version of this paper is included in Kennedy.L.M., Ph.D. Thesis, Harvard University, 1979

**Now at Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, Shrewsbury, MA 01545, USA. Reprint requests should be sent to this address.


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