Background Umami and sweet tastes are two important basic taste perceptions that allow
animals to recognize diets with nutritious carbohydrates and proteins, respectively. Until …

Adaptive evolution plays a role in the functional divergence and specialization of taste
receptors and the sense of taste is thought to be closely related to feeding ecology. To …

Bitter taste perception plays a critical role in deterring animals from consuming harmful and
toxic substances. To characterize the evolution of primate Tas2r, test the generality of Tas2r …

Background Bitter taste perception is essential for species with selective food intake,
enabling them to avoid unpalatable or toxic items. Previous studies noted a marked variation …

Bitter taste receptors serve as a vital component in the defense system against toxin intake
by animals, and the family of genes encoding these receptors has been demonstrated …

Genome studies of mammals in the superorder Euarchontoglires (a clade that comprises the
orders Primates, Dermoptera, Scandentia, Rodentia, and Lagomorpha) are important for …

Abstract Background New World monkeys (NWMs) are unique in that they exhibit
remarkable interspecific variation in color vision and feeding behavior, making them an …

Simple Summary A sense of taste is vital to an animal's fitness. It enables animals to select
and ingest beneficial foods and avoid harmful substances in their daily lives. There have …

Abstract Taste 2 receptors (TAS2R) mediate bitterness perception in mammals, thus are
called bitter taste receptors. It is believed that these genes evolved in response to species …

Background Human bitter taste receptors are encoded by a gene family consisting of 25
functional TAS2R loci. In addition, humans carry 11 TAS2R pseudogenes, some of which …