Wednesday, January 07, 2009
A natural flavor-enhancing mechanism could improve drug delivery.
By Katherine Bourzac
The savory flavor that makes it hard to stop eating
flamin' hot Cheetos could perhaps hold the key to delivering drugs more
effectively.
Our tongues find this flavor, called umami, in
protein-rich foods; it's actually a response to glutamate (or glutamic acid).
Dubbed the "fifth taste" (in addition to sour, salty, sweet, and
bitter), umami was named by a Japanese scientist in 1908 and has come to prominence
in the American consciousness more
recently (it's now being used to advertise soy sauce).
Now a California food-science company called Senomyx has
uncovered the molecular mechanism that helps enhance umami flavor, and the discovery
could not only lead to new flavor enhancers, but also help drug
companies looking for molecules to deliver drugs more effectively.
As the researchers describe in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, a molecule that enhances the umami flavor--ribonucleotide
inosine monophosphate--binds along with glutamate to two
different targets on a common-type cell receptor called a GPCR (G protein-coupled receptor).
The double binding helps enhance the signal.
Since GPCRs are implicated in many diseases and are the
target of half of all drugs
on the market, understanding this double binding could lead to drug
combinations that work better at lower doses.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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