IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Li, X.; Glaser, D.; Li, W.; Johnson, W.E.; O'Brien, S.J.; Beauchamp, G.K.; Brand, J.G. | |
| Analyses of sweet receptor gene (Tas1r2) and preference for sweet stimuli in species of Carnivora | |
| 2009 Journal of Heredity (100): S90-S100 | |
The extent to which taste receptor specificity correlates with, or even predicts, diet choice is not known. We recently reported that the insensitivity to sweeteners shown by species of Felidae can be explained by their lacking of a functional _Tas1r2_ gene. To broaden our understanding of the relationship between the structure of the sweet receptors and preference for sugars and artificial sweeteners, we measured responses to 12 sweeteners in 6 species of Carnivora and sequenced the coding regions of _Tas1r2_ in these same or closely related species. The lion showed no preference for any of the 12 sweet compounds tested, and it possesses the pseudogenized _Tas1r2_. All other species preferred some of the natural sugars, and their _Tas1r2_ sequences, having complete open reading frames, predict functional sweet receptors. In addition to preferring natural sugars, the lesser panda also preferred 3 (neotame, sucralose, and aspartame) of the 6 artificial sweeteners. Heretofore, it had been reported that among vertebrates, only Old World simians could taste aspartame. The observation that the lesser panda highly preferred aspartame could be an example of evolutionary convergence in the identification of sweet stimuli. |
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