Background information
The sense of taste provides animals with valuable information about the quality and nutritional value of food. A family of G protein-coupled receptors are involved in taste perception and include T1R, which is involved in sweet and umami taste perception, and T2R, which is involved in bitter taste perception. Both types of taste receptors couple to various G proteins to initiate signal transduction cascades. Single taste receptor cells express a variety of T2Rs, suggesting that each cell is capable of recognizing multiple tastants. T2R6 (also designatedT2R30, mt2r42, STC 7-4 or taste receptor, type 2, member 130) is an integral membrane receptor protein in mice that may play a role in the perception of bitterness and in sensing the chemical composition of the gastrointestinal content. The activity of this receptor may stimulate Alpha-gustducin, mediate PLC-Beta-2 activation and lead to the gating of TRPM5. T2R6 is expressed in subsets of taste receptor cells of the tongue and palate epithelium and exclusively in gustducin-positive cells. The human homolog of T2R6, designated T2R7 (TAS2R7, TRB4 or taste receptor, type 2, member 7) is a G protein-coupled receptor expressed in taste receptor cells of the tongue and palate epithelia.
