Date of Award:

5-2016

Document Type:

Dissertation

Degree Name:

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department:

Biology

Committee Chair(s)

Timothy A. Gilbertson

Committee

Timothy A. Gilbertson

Committee

Brett A. Adams

Committee

Keith A. Mott

Committee

Silvana Martini

Committee

Joan M. Hevel

Abstract

The prevalence of overweight or obese in adults has nearly doubled during the past two decades, and obesity increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and even some types of cancer. One of the factors closely linked with the obesity epidemic is overconsumption of dietary fat. Accumulating evidence has supported the existence of the "taste of fat", and more and more studies have focused on identifying the mechanisms of fatty acid detection by gustatory system. In this study, I showed for the first time that medium-chain saturated fatty acids (MCFAs) were able to activate taste cells isolated from mice, and they could also be tasted by mice behaviorally. These data suggested that MCFAs were effective taste stimuli. The signaling pathways involved in the taste transduction of MCFAs were also studied here. A novel G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) GPR84 was suggested to be the main receptor of MCFAs in taste cells, because the mice lacking the GPR84 gene had significantly reduced taste responses to MCFAs both cellularly and behaviorally. My study also suggested that downstream of GPR84 signaling involves G-protein, protein kinase A (PKA), and protein kinase C (PKC) activation, but does not involve phospholipase C (PLC) and phosphodiesterase (PDE). The knowledge on fatty taste may help us reduce fat intake and in turn, prevent obesity in the future.

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