Isolation of chicken taste buds for real‐time Ca2+ imaging |
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Authors: | Ken‐ichi Kudo Fuminori Kawabata Toumi Nomura Ayumi Aridome Shotaro Nishimura Shoji Tabata |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Bioresource Sciences, Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, , Fukuoka, Japan;2. Institute for Advanced Study, , Fukuoka, Japan;3. Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, , Fukuoka, Japan |
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Abstract: | We isolated chicken taste buds and used a real‐time Ca2+ imaging technique to investigate the functions of the taste cells. With RT‐PCR, we found that isolated chicken taste bud‐like cell subsets express chicken gustducin messenger RNA. Immunocytochemical techniques revealed that the cell subsets were also immunopositive for chicken gustducin. These results provided strong evidence that the isolated cell subsets contain chicken taste buds. The isolated cell subsets were spindle‐shaped and approximately 61–75 μm wide and 88–98 μm long, and these characteristics are similar to those of sectional chicken taste buds. Using Ca2+ imaging, we observed the buds' response to 2 mmol/L quinine hydrochloride (a bitter substance) and their response to a mixture of 25 mmol/L L‐glutamic acid monopotassium salt monohydrate and 1 mmol/L inosine 5′‐monophosphate disodium salt, umami substances. The present study is the first morphological demonstration of isolated chicken taste buds, and our results indicate that the isolated taste buds were intact and functional approaches for examining the taste senses of the chicken using Ca2+ imaging can be informative. |
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Keywords: | bitter Ca2+ imaging taste umami |
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