Yingcan Li

1 Introduction The sense of taste allows animals to detect and distinguish foods by recognizing specific chemical compounds, playing a crucial role in survival and adaptation. In mammals, five basic tastes have been identified: sweet, umami, sour, salty, and bitter (Yarmolinsky et al. 2009). Sweet and umami tastes, mediated by the heterodimers Tas1r2+Tas1r3 and Tas1r1+Tas1r3, respectively, enable the detection of carbohydrates and amino acids (Zhao et al. 2003).

Sweet taste is a crucial chemosensory modality for detecting natural sugar compounds, which are primarily derived from angiosperms. In vertebrates, excluding birds, sweet taste is typically mediated by the Tas1r2–Tas1r3 heterodimer, and the receptor function often reflects dietary adaptations to sugar-rich diets.