That sour taste in your mouth
From Times wire reports
Researchers have identified a protein that lets people detect sour tastes, a sense scientists still don’t fully understand.
Researchers at UC San Diego led by neuroscientist Charles Zuker isolated a protein called PKD2L1. It is found in cells different from those known to let humans detect other tastes, such as sweetness and bitterness.
The group altered mice so that they lacked PKD2L1 cells -- and the mice were unable to detect sour tastes.
Zuker said the findings, published last week in the journal Nature, provided more evidence that humans have cells that detect specific tastes rather than more generalized cells that identify a variety of qualities.
