A novel experimental research based on taste cell chips for taste transduction mechanism

Recent advantages in electrophysiological technique on detecting potential and ion changes of taste cells make great progress in developing taste transduction mechanisms of taste receptor cells (TRCs). Light-addressable potentiometric sensor (LAPS) is used to detect extracellular potential of TRCs cultured on the silicon chip and to test the taste cell response to taste stimuli of NaCl, HCl, MgSO4, sucrose and glumate. Results show that the system composed of LAPS and TRCs is sensitive to gustatorius changes, which has great potential to monitor electrophysiology property of living TRCs. It is a novel non-invasive method to study taste transduction mechanisms in vitro for a long term.