Gustducin and Its Second Messengers
Until recently, the nature of gustducin and its second messengers was unclear. It was clear, however, that gustducin acted like transducin, and transduced intracellular signals. Spielman was one of the first to look at the speed of taste reception, utilizing the quenched-flow technique. When the taste cells were exposed to the bitter stimulants denatonium and sucrose octaacetate, the intracellular response was a transient increase of IP3 occurred within 50-100 millisecond of stimulation. This was not unexpected, as it was known that transducin was capable of sending signals within rod and cone cells at similar speeds. This indicated that IP3 was one of the second messengers used in bitter taste transduction. It was later discovered that cAMP also causes an influx of cations during bitter and some sweet taste transduction, leading to the conclusion that it also acted as a second messenger to gustducin.
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