Molecular Features Underlying Selectivity in Chicken Bitter Taste Receptors.

Chickens sense the bitter taste of structurally different molecules with merely three bitter taste receptors ( taste 2 receptors, ggTas2rs), representing a minimal case of bitter perception. Some bitter compounds like quinine, diphenidol and chlorpheniramine, activate all three ggTas2rs, while others selectively activate one or two of the receptors. We focus on bitter compounds with different selectivity profiles toward the three receptors, to shed light on the molecular recognition complexity in bitter taste.