New insights into the relationship between taste perception and oral microbiota composition

Abstract

Fairly poor data are available on the relationship between taste perception, food preferences and oral microbiota. In the present study, we investigated the hypothesis that subjects with higher responsiveness to 6-n-propylthiuracil (PROP) might be characterized by a different taste sensitivity and tongue microbiota composition. Indeed, the bacterial metabolism may modulate/enhance the concentration of tastants near the taste receptors, modifying taste perception through a sensorial adaptation mechanism or by a broad range of microbial metabolic pathways. The detection thresholds of sweet, sour, salty and bitter, the Fungiform Papillae Density (FPD) and the composition of bacteria lining the tongue were determined in Supertasters (high PROP responsiveness, ST) and Non-tasters (low PROP responsiveness, NT). An important inter-individual variability was found for all taste stimuli and FPD between the two groups, with NT subjects showing significant higher threshold values and a lower FPD than with STs. We found five bacterial genera whose relative abundances were significantly higher in STs than NTs. This study opens new avenues of research by highlighting associations between parameters usually studied independently.

Planning and Executing Scientifically Sound Community Science in a Public-Facing Institution

“…There was an unseen benefit to this lesson. Our detailed examination of every data-collection method employed in the taste field led us to develop the Denver Papillae Protocol (DPP) to count FP consistently ; DPP is now used in many academic taste labs (Cattaneo et al 2019;Reynolds et al 2017;Spinelli et al 2017), and researchers attempting to automate FP counts have used DPP to check the accuracy of their proposed methods (Eldeghaidy et al 2018;Piochi et al 2017). The taste-research community ultimately benefited from our experience, even if our original data didn't advance the field's understanding of the genetics of taste.…”

Urinary TMAO Levels Are Associated with the Taxonomic Composition of the Gut Microbiota and with the Choline TMA-Lyase Gene (cutC) Harbored by Enterobacteriaceae

“…The bacterial community structure of the fecal microbiota was analyzed as described elsewhere [23,24], with DNA extracted from feces as described in Section 2.2. In brief, extracted DNA was analyzed through 16S rRNA gene profiling.…”

Intra‐oral trigeminal‐mediated sensations influencing taste perception: A systematic review

“…Taste modulation could therefore rely on basal saliva components. Physical‐chemical interactions of salivary proteins with bitter tastants, release of simple sugars through amylase activity or buffering of acids through carbonic anhydrase activity may occur and some components of basal saliva such as ions, proteins or even sugars may act as tastants . An accumulation of bacterial plaque may moreover cover the tongue and could also refer to “tongue coating” sensation.…”

“…Tongue coating reduction enhanced taste ability, suggesting that tongue coating limits tastants’ access to taste pores and thus prevents their binding to taste receptors. Cattaneo et al, recently demonstrated that the number of Gram‐positive Actinomyces , Oribacterium , Solobacterium and Catonella , and Gram‐negative Campylobacter populations on the tongue dorsum was higher in PROP‐supertasters compared with PROP‐non‐tasters, suggesting that lingual microbiota may vary according to taste phenotype or ability. Correlations have also been observed between bitter taste sensitivity and Bacteroidetes of the lingual biofilm .…”