Sophorolipid Reduces Bitter Taste in Humans In Vivo and In Vitro

Abstract

Bitter taste warns us against ingesting toxic chemicals but can also discourage consumption of healthful nutrients and prescribed medications. Thus, discovery of ingredients to reduce bitterness is an important research priority. The potential bitter‐taste‐blocking effect of sophorolipids has recently been reported. Sophorolipids are biosurfactant glycolipids normally synthesized via yeast fermentation. In the current experiments, the effect of sophorolipid on bitter taste was evaluated using both cultured human taste papillae (HBO) cells and in vivo sensory experiments with human tasters. Sophorolipids significantly reduced responses of HBO cells to a mixture of diverse bitter compounds. Human participants rated the bitterness of a mixture of diverse bitter compounds as less intensely bitter both after prerinsing with a sophorolipid solution and when sophorolipids were added to the mixture. Taken together, these results suggest that sophorolipids may reduce perceived bitterness in humans, at least in part by acting on peripheral mechanisms. Although further work is needed to confirm these findings and determine the exact mechanism(s) of action, thus far sophorolipids show promise as candidate ingredients to reduce bitterness.

Pseudo-Taste Cells Derived from Rat Taste and Non-Taste Tissues: Implications for Cultured Taste Cell-Based Biosensors

“…In particular, there is still insufficient knowledge on the growth characteristics of taste cells in vitro . For example, although taste cells in vivo exhibit spindle morphology, significant morphological differences were observed between cultured human, rat, and porcine taste cells. − Some of the cultured taste cells in the previous literature displayed epithelial-like morphology, whereas others assumed fibroblast-like shapes. − Moreover, cultured taste cells seemed to display morphological changes over time, although the reasons have remained unclarified. , So far, the application of cultured taste cells in taste research is only limited to several research groups. − While some of them used the cultured taste cells to screen taste-active compounds or study the taste signaling pathways, ,− the identities and functional characteristics of the taste cells in vitro have never been carefully scrutinized . To date, it is still undetermined to what extent the so-called “cultured taste cells” recapitulate the taste cells in vivo .…”