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Is the Association Between Sweet and Bitter Perception due to Genetic Variation?

ABSTRACT: Perceived intensities of sweetness and bitterness are correlated with one another and each is influenced by genetics. The extent to which these correlations share common genetic variation, however, remains unclear. In a mainly adolescent sample ( n = 1901, mean age 16.2 years), including 243 monozygotic (MZ) and 452 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, we estimated the covariance among the perceived intensities of 4 bitter compounds (6- n -propylthiouracil [PROP], sucrose octa-acetate, quinine, caffeine) and 4 sweeteners (the weighted mean ratings of glucose, fructose, neohesperidine dihydrochalcone, aspartame) with multivariate genetic modeling. The sweetness factor was moderately correlated with sucrose octa-acetate, quinine, and caffeine ( rp = 0.35-0.40). This was mainly due to a shared genetic factor ( rg = 0.46-0.51) that accounted for 17-37% of the variance in the 3 bitter compounds' ratings and 8% of the variance in general sweetness ratings. In contrast, an association between sweetness and PROP only became evident after adjusting for the TAS2R38 diplotype ( rp increased from 0.18 to 0.32) with the PROP genetic factor accounting for 6% of variance in sweetness. These genetic associations were not inflated by scale use bias, as the cross-trait correlations for both MZ and DZ twins were weak. There was also little evidence for mediation by cognition or behavioral factors. This suggests an overlap of genetic variance between perceptions of sweetness and bitterness from a variety of stimuli, which includes PROP when considering the TAS2R38 diplotype. The most likely sources of shared variation are within genes encoding post-receptor transduction mechanisms common to the various taste G protein-coupled receptors.

SUBMITTER: Hwang LD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5070489 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Is the Association Between Sweet and Bitter Perception due to Genetic Variation?

Hwang Liang-Dar LD Breslin Paul A S PAS Reed Danielle R DR Zhu Gu G Martin Nicholas G NG Wright Margaret J MJ

Chemical senses 20161101 9

Perceived intensities of sweetness and bitterness are correlated with one another and each is influenced by genetics. The extent to which these correlations share common genetic variation, however, remains unclear. In a mainly adolescent sample ( n = 1901, mean age 16.2 years), including 243 monozygotic (MZ) and 452 dizygotic (DZ) twin pairs, we estimated the covariance among the perceived intensities of 4 bitter compounds (6- n -propylthiouracil [PROP], sucrose octa-acetate, quinine, caffeine) ...[more]

PMID: 27506221

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Project description:Humans will eat almost anything, from caribou livers to rutabagas, but there are some types of foods, and their associated taste qualities, that are preferred by large groups of people regardless of culture or experience. When many choices are available, humans chose foods that taste good, that is, create pleasing sensations in the mouth. The concept of good taste for most people encompasses both flavor and texture of food, and these sensations merge with taste proper to form the concept of goodness. Although we acknowledge the universality of the goodness (sweet) or badness (bitter) of basic taste qualities, we also find that people differ, sometimes extremely so, in their ability to perceive and enjoy these qualities and, by extension, food and drink. The reasons for these differences among people are not clear but are probably due to a combination of experience beginning at an early age, perhaps in utero; learning, for example, as with conditioned taste aversions; sex and maturity; and perceptual differences that arise from genetic variation. In this review, we focus on individual variations that arise from genetic differences and review two domains of science: recent developments in the molecular biology of taste transduction, with a focus on the genes involved and second, studies that examine biological relatives to determine the heritability of taste perception. Because the receptors for sweet, savory (umami), and bitter have recently been discovered, we summarize what is known about their function by reviewing the effect of naturally occurring and man-made alleles of these receptors, their shape and function based on receptor modeling techniques, and how they differ across animal species that vary in their ability to taste certain qualities. We discuss this literature in the context of how taste genes may differ among people and give rise to individuated taste experience, and what is currently known about the genetic effects on taste perception in humans.

Project description:ObjectiveBitter or sweet beverage perception is associated with alterations in brain structure and function. Our aim is to analyze the genetic association between bitter or sweet beverage perception and human brain proteins.Materials and methodsIn our study, 8356 and 11,518 proteins were first collected from two reference datasets of human brain proteomes, the ROS/MAP and Banner. The bitter or sweet beverage perception-related proteome-wide association studies (PWAS) were then conducted by integrating recent genome-wide association study (GWAS) data (n = 422,300) of taste perception with human brain proteomes. The human brain gene expression profiles were collected from two reference datasets, including the brain RNA-seq (CBR) and brain RNA-seq splicing (CBRS). The taste perception-related transcriptome-wide association studies (TWAS) were finally performed by integrating the same GWAS data with human brain gene expression profiles to validate the PWAS findings.ResultsIn PWAS, four statistically significant proteins were identified using the ROS/MAP and then replicated using the Banner reference dataset (all permutated p < 0.05), including ABCG2 for total bitter beverages and tea, CPNE1 for total bitter beverage, ACTR1B for artificially sweetened beverages, FLOT2 for alcoholic bitter beverages and total sweet beverages. In TWAS analysis, six statistically significant genes were detected by CBR and confirmed by the CBRS reference dataset (all permutated p < 0.05), including PIGG for total bitter beverages and non-alcoholic bitter beverages, C3orf18 for total bitter beverages, ZSWIM7 for non-alcoholic bitter beverages, PEX7 for coffee, PKP4 for tea and RPLP2 for grape juice. Further comparison of the PWAS and TWAS found three common statistically significant proteins/genes identified from the Banner and CBR reference datasets, including THBS4 for total bitter beverages, CA4 for non-alcoholic bitter beverages, LIAS for non-grape juices.ConclusionsOur results support the potential effect of bitter or sweet beverage perception on brain function and identify several candidate brain proteins for bitter or sweet beverage perception.

Project description:BackgroundCurrent approaches to studying relations between taste perception and diet quality typically consider each taste-sweet, salt, sour, bitter, umami-separately or aggregately, as total taste scores. Consistent with studying dietary patterns rather than single foods or total energy, an additional approach may be to study all 5 tastes collectively as "taste perception profiles."ObjectiveWe developed a data-driven clustering approach to derive taste perception profiles from taste perception scores and examined whether profiles outperformed total taste scores for capturing individual variability in taste perception.MethodsThe cohort included 367 community-dwelling adults [55-75 y; 55% female; BMI (kg/m2): 32.2 ± 3.6] with metabolic syndrome from PREDIMED-Plus, Valencia. Cluster analysis identified subgroups of individuals with similar patterns in taste perception (taste perception profiles); quantitative criteria were used to select the cluster algorithm, determine the optimal number of clusters, and assess the profiles' validity and stability. Goodness-of-fit parameters from adjusted linear regression evaluated the individual variability captured by each approach.ResultsA k-means algorithm with 6 clusters best fit the data and identified the following taste perception profiles: Low All, High Bitter, High Umami, Low Bitter & Umami, High All But Bitter and High All But Umami. All profiles were valid and stable. Compared with total taste scores, taste perception profiles explained more variability in bitter and umami perception (adjusted R2: 0.19 vs. 0.63, respectively; 0.40 vs. 0.65, respectively) and were comparable for sweet, salt, and sour. In addition, taste perception profiles captured differential perceptions of each taste within individuals, whereas these patterns were lost with total taste scores.ConclusionsAmong older adults with metabolic syndrome, taste perception profiles derived via data-driven clustering may provide a valuable approach to capture individual variability in perception of all 5 tastes and their collective influence on diet quality. This trial was registered at https://www.isrctn.com/ as ISRCTN89898870.

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Is the Association Between Sweet and Bitter Perception due to Genetic Variation?

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Is the Association Between Sweet and Bitter Perception due to Genetic Variation?

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