ISIS Neutron and Muon Source Data Journal

Sweet taste chemoreception: the strange case of alpha-mannose (sweet) and beta-mannose (bitter)

Abstract: In the late 1960s, a molecular theory of sweet taste was proposed, based on the presence of a ?functional structure? (AH-B-X) in all sweeteners, eliciting the sweet response via the interaction with a complementary AH-B-X dock in the taste bud receptor. Interestingly, two isomers of the same carbohydrate D-mannose, have a totally different taste, as the alpha isomer is sweet while the beta isomer is bitter. Remarkably, the only difference between these two isomers is the position of a single -OH group. We propose to look at the compatibility of these two isomers with the AH-B-X docking site of the receptor, in terms of the hydration of specific sites of both isomers of D-mannose. These hydration patterns will be compared with that of glucose (sweet) that we have recently obtained, in order to understand, at the atomic length scale, sweet taste chemoreception.

Principal Investigator: Professor Fabio Bruni
Experimenter: Dr Laura Maugeri
Local Contact: Dr Silvia Imberti
Experimenter: Dr Sylvia McLain
Experimenter: Professor Maria Antonietta Ricci
Experimenter: Dr Luis Carlos Pardo-Soto
Experimenter: Dr Natasha Rhys

DOI: 10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1520065

ISIS Experiment Number: RB1520065

Publisher: STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source

Data format: RAW/Nexus
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Data Citation

The recommended format for citing this dataset in a research publication is as:
[author], [date], [title], [publisher], [doi]

For Example:
Professor Fabio Bruni et al; (2016): Sweet taste chemoreception: the strange case of alpha-mannose (sweet) and beta-mannose (bitter), STFC ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, https://doi.org/10.5286/ISIS.E.RB1520065

Data is released under the CC-BY-4.0 license.