For a new sweetness technology to realize strong commercial success, it must be safe, exhibit good taste quality, be sufficiently soluble and stable in food and beverage systems, and be cost effective and patentable. Assessments of the commercial promise of eight synthetic and eight natural non-caloric sweeteners are made relevant to these metrics. High-potency (HP) non-caloric sweeteners, both synthetic and natural, are generally limited in taste quality by (a) low maximal sweetness response, (b) "off" tastes, (c) slow-onset sweet tastes that linger, and (d) sweet tastes that adapt or desensitize the gustatory system. Formulation approaches to address these limitations are discussed. Enhancement of the normal sucrose sensory response by action of a sweetener receptor positive allosteric modulator (PAM) has been achieved with very significant calorie reduction and with retention of the taste quality of sucrose. Research on PAM discovery over the past decade is summarized.

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To identify molecules that could enhance sweetness perception, we undertook the screening of a compound library using a cellbased assay for the human sweet taste receptor and a panel of selected sweeteners. In one of these screens we found a hit, SE-1, which significantly enhanced the activity of sucralose in the assay. At 50 μM, SE-1 increased the sucralose potency by >20-fold. On the other hand, SE-1 exhibited little or no agonist activity on its own. SE-1 effects were strikingly selective for sucralose. Other popular sweeteners such as aspartame, cyclamate, and saccharin were not enhanced by SE-1 whereas sucrose and neotame potency were increased only by 1.3-to 2.5-fold at 50 μM. Further assayguided chemical optimization of the initial hit SE-1 led to the discovery of SE-2 and SE-3, selective enhancers of sucralose and sucrose, respectively. SE-2 (50 μM) and SE-3 (200 μM) increased sucralose and sucrose potencies in the assay by 24-and 4.7-fold, respectively. In human taste tests, 100 μM of SE-1 and SE-2 allowed for a reduction of 50% to >80% in the concentration of sucralose, respectively, while maintaining the sweetness intensity, and 100 μM SE-3 allowed for a reduction of 33% in the concentration of sucrose while maintaining the sweetness intensity. These enhancers did not exhibit any sweetness when tasted on their own. Positive allosteric modulators of the human sweet taste receptor could help reduce the caloric content in food and beverages while maintaining the desired taste.enhancer | sweetness | perception | sucrose T he steady increase of the daily consumption of dietary sugar over the last decades may have contributed to the obesity crisis and the early onset of type-II diabetes observed in many developed countries (1, 2). As a result, food and beverage companies have launched a plethora of diet brands where sugar has been partly or fully replaced by noncaloric sweeteners to decrease caloric intake. Currently some of the commonly used noncaloric sweeteners include saccharin, aspartame, cyclamate, sucralose, and acesulfame K (3, 4). However, none of these substances can completely reproduce the taste of sugar. These sweeteners all suffer from one or more shortcomings including a bitter or metallic aftertaste at high concentrations, limiting their use to lower concentrations, or temporal issues such as a delayed sweet taste onset, a lingering sweet aftertaste, or a limited maximum sweetness intensity (4, 5). Another appealing approach to address the problem, in addition to looking for novel noncaloric sweeteners, would be to find molecules capable of enhancing sweetness perception. Ideally, such an enhancer molecule would not elicit sweetness on its own but it would boost the sweetness intensity of a lower amount of sweetener or sugar. Such enhancers could therefore allow for a reduction in the amount of sugar, and calories, in food and beverages while maintaining the desired taste. Similarly, a sweet taste enhancer could allow for a reduction in the amount of noncaloric sweeteners used in "0"-calorie...

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