Trabajo presentado en Aquaculture Europe 2019, celebrado en Berlín (Alemania), del 7 al 10 de octubre de 2019Taste perception of sweet and umami stimuli in vertebrates is largely controlled by a family of G-protein-coupled receptors,
the taste receptor type 1 (T1R) family, with three members that combine in heterodimers to form the taste receptors. The
mammalian T1R1/T1R3 receptor responds to umami compounds such as amino acids, whereas T1R2/T1R3 is activated by
sweet substances. In mammals, it has been well established that taste sensing in the oral cavity (taste buds) not only guides
the consumption of foods, but the presence of taste receptors in specialized cells of the gastrointestinal tract (enteroendocrine
cells) can also regulate digestive, absorptive and metabolic functions through gut sensing mechanisms (Alpers, 2010;
Depoortere, 2014). In fish, however, very little information is available, particularly in species of aquaculture interest. We
have previously cloned the full-length cDNA of five T1R genes in Sparus aurata (sa), including the specific heterodimer
subunit of the umami taste (saT1R1), three novel sweet taste duplicate genes (saT1R2x, saT1R2y, saT1R2z) and the
saT1R3 gene common to both umami and sweet taste heterodimers. The objective of this study was to further characterize
their functional properties and patterns of expression in both larval and adult seabream tissues