Evolution of a Bitter Taste Receptor Gene Cluster in a New World Sparrow

Davis, Jamie K.; Lowman, Josh J; Thomas, Pamela J.; Hallers, Boudewijn F.H. ten; Koriabine, Maxim; Huynh, Lynn; Maney, Donna L.; Jong, Pieter J. de; Martin, Christa Lese; Program, Nisc Comparative Sequencing; Thomas, James W.

doi:10.1093/gbe/evq027

Cited by 38 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 64 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…(49)]. The number of receptors in a given species may relate to the receptors’ receptive range, the effects of variation within the population (4) and the environmental pressure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

BitterDB: a database of bitter compounds

Wiener

Shudler

Levit

et al. 2011

Nucleic Acids Research

226

203

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Basic taste qualities like sour, salty, sweet, bitter and umami serve specific functions in identifying food components found in the diet of humans and animals, and are recognized by proteins in the oral cavity. Recognition of bitter taste and aversion to it are thought to protect the organism against the ingestion of poisonous food compounds, which are often bitter. Interestingly, bitter taste receptors are expressed not only in the mouth but also in extraoral tissues, such as the gastrointestinal tract, indicating that they may play a role in digestive and metabolic processes. BitterDB database, available at http://bitterdb.agri.huji.ac.il/bitterdb/, includes over 550 compounds that were reported to taste bitter to humans. The compounds can be searched by name, chemical structure, similarity to other bitter compounds, association with a particular human bitter taste receptor, and so on. The database also contains information on mutations in bitter taste receptors that were shown to influence receptor activation by bitter compounds. The aim of BitterDB is to facilitate studying the chemical features associated with bitterness. These studies may contribute to predicting bitterness of unknown compounds, predicting ligands for bitter receptors from different species and rational design of bitterness modulators.

show abstract

“…(49)]. The number of receptors in a given species may relate to the receptors’ receptive range, the effects of variation within the population (4) and the environmental pressure.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

BitterDB: a database of bitter compounds

Wiener

Shudler

Levit

et al. 2011

Nucleic Acids Research

226

203

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In humans, individual differences in taste perception, linked to genetic polymorphisms in bitter taste receptors (Tas2rs - Chandrashekar et al 2000;Lindemann 2001;Behrens and Meyerhof 2013), affect food choice and dietary habits (Garcia-Bailo et al 2009;Lipchock et al 2017). There is now growing molecular evidence for the potential for variation in taste perception in birds, both between (Behrens et al 2014;Wang and Zhao 2015;Zhao et al 2015) and within species (Davis et al 2010;Su et al 2016). For example, Su et al (2016) detected 3-13 short nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the family of G-protein-coupled receptors responsible for bitter taste perception in Sichuan domestic and Tibetan chicken populations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predators’ consumption of unpalatable prey does not vary as a function of bitter taste perception

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many prey species contain defensive chemicals that are described as tasting bitter. Bitter taste perception is, therefore, assumed to be important when predators are learning about prey defenses. However, it is not known how individuals differ in their response to bitter taste, and how this influences their foraging decisions. We conducted taste perception assays in which wild-caught great tits (Parus major) were given water with increasing concentrations of bitter-tasting chloroquine diphosphate until they showed an aversive response to bitter taste. This response threshold was found to vary considerably among individuals, ranging from chloroquine concentrations of 0.01 mmol/L to 8 mmol/L. We next investigated whether the response threshold influenced the consumption of defended prey during avoidance learning by presenting birds with novel palatable and defended prey in a random sequence until they refused to attack defended prey. We predicted that individuals with taste response thresholds at lower concentrations would consume fewer defended prey before rejecting them, but found that the response threshold had no effect on the birds’ foraging choices. Instead, willingness to consume defended prey was influenced by the birds’ body condition. This effect was age- and sex-dependent, with adult males attacking more of the defended prey when their body condition was poor, whereas body condition did not have an effect on the foraging choices of juveniles and females. Together, our results suggest that even though taste perception might be important for recognizing prey toxicity, other factors, such as predators’ energetic state, drive the decisions to consume chemically defended prey.

show abstract

“…When possible, aligned BAC-end sequences were used to select pairs of clones from the autosomal loci that represented the two alternative haplotypes present in the library using the strategy described in [20]. Individual BAC clones were either Sanger shotgun sequenced and assembled as described in [21], or pooled and shotgun sequenced using Roche 454 single-end reads.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

BAC-Based Sequencing of Behaviorally-Relevant Genes in the Prairie Vole

et al. 2012

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The prairie vole (Microtus ochrogaster) is an important model organism for the study of social behavior, yet our ability to correlate genes and behavior in this species has been limited due to a lack of genetic and genomic resources. Here we report the BAC-based targeted sequencing of behaviorally-relevant genes and flanking regions in the prairie vole. A total of 6.4 Mb of non-redundant or haplotype-specific sequence assemblies were generated that span the partial or complete sequence of 21 behaviorally-relevant genes as well as an additional 55 flanking genes. Estimates of nucleotide diversity from 13 loci based on alignments of 1.7 Mb of haplotype-specific assemblies revealed an average pair-wise heterozygosity (8.4×10−3). Comparative analyses of the prairie vole proteins encoded by the behaviorally-relevant genes identified >100 substitutions specific to the prairie vole lineage. Finally, our sequencing data indicate that a duplication of the prairie vole AVPR1A locus likely originated from a recent segmental duplication spanning a minimum of 105 kb. In summary, the results of our study provide the genomic resources necessary for the molecular and genetic characterization of a high-priority set of candidate genes for regulating social behavior in the prairie vole.

show abstract

Evolution of a Bitter Taste Receptor Gene Cluster in a New World Sparrow

Cited by 38 publications

References 64 publications

BitterDB: a database of bitter compounds

BitterDB: a database of bitter compounds

Predators’ consumption of unpalatable prey does not vary as a function of bitter taste perception

BAC-Based Sequencing of Behaviorally-Relevant Genes in the Prairie Vole

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About