Bitter Taste Receptors in Uterus May One Day Help Prevent Premature Birth

Researchers suggest that the receptors can control early labor contractions.

Written byJef Akst

| 5 min read

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TARGETING TASTE: Will doctors one day be able to drug taste receptors in the uterus to prevent preterm labor?© ISTOCK.COM/WANMONGKHOL

Over the past 15 years, researchers have begun to discover that the taste receptors that sense sweet, bitter, salty, sour, and umami flavors are found in tissues far removed from our mouths. For example, taste receptors expressed in the gut appear to play a role in digestion, while receptors in the airway may play a role in respiration.

When Ronghua ZhuGe, a physiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, came across a 2010 study that had identified bitter taste receptors on human airway smooth muscle cells (Nat Med, 16:1299-304), he was intrigued. The paper’s authors had found that activation of these receptors caused the cells to relax, dilating the airway. The researchers hypothesized that calcium-activated potassium channels underlay the taste-mediated relaxation, but they didn’t ...

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Meet the Author

Jef Akst
Jef (an unusual nickname for Jennifer) got her master’s degree from Indiana University in April 2009 studying the mating behavior of seahorses. After four years of diving off the Gulf Coast of Tampa and performing behavioral experiments at the Tennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga, she left research to pursue a career in science writing. As The Scientist's managing editor, Jef edited features and oversaw the production of the TS Digest and quarterly print magazine. In 2022, her feature on uterus transplantation earned first place in the trade category of the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism. She is a member of the National Association of Science Writers.
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