Effect Of Sweet Exposure In Lactation On Development Model Of Foliate Taste Buds In Mice

Taste perception is a main factor forming food flavor and an important indexin food sensory evaluation. It plays a remarkable role in the process of fooddevelopment, quality control and sale. In mammals, the taste apparatus is tastebuds. They mainly locate within circumvallate papillae, foliate papillae andfungiform papillae on tongue. Research founds that, the lactation period, frombirth to ablactation, is critical developmental period of taste buds in mammals.The gustatory system of mammals is susceptible to anatomical modification bydiet or taste exposure during critical or sensitive periods at early postnataldevelopment stages. The previous results in our lab also confirmed that, the sweetexposure on early postnatal period could accelerate the development ofcircumvallate taste buds and fungiform taste buds in mice.Foliate papillae locate bilaterally along the posterolateral margins of the tongue surface. Since they have a lot of resemblance with circumvallate papillae,they don't become the focus of scientific attention in humans. But as a kind ofindependent taste organ, they have many unique characters. For example, they areinnervated by glossopharyngeal nerve, but the more anterior portion also receivesnerve fibers from the chorda tympani; sweet taste receptor and umami tastereceptor are coexpressed in them. Another noticeable interesting phenomena isanimals, whose circumvallate papillae developed well, usually have weaklydeveloped foliate papillae.In order to consummate the taste study which takes mice as the animalmodel and provide complete biological foundation for taste behavior and foodpreference, we investigated the foliate papillae. First of all, the mice wereexposed properly during the lactation period, and then serial sections were madeand stained by hematoxylin-eosin stain method and avidin-biotin-peroxidasecomplex method, the distribution model of taste buds (number and morphology)and the expression model ofα-gustducin (number ofα-gustducin-positive tastebuds andα-gustducin-positive cells per bud) in foliate papillae of the normal andexposed mice were examined at different postnatal ages.All the experimental mice were divided into two groups as follows. 1)Control group: mice were sacrificed at postnatal day 0, postnatal week 1, 2, 3, 5,7 and 9. 2) Exposed group: mice received sweet exposure (10g/L) from postnatalday 4 (9:00 and 16:00) and were sacrificed at postnatal week 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9. Thisstudy chose non-caloric sweetener acesulfame-K as sweet stimulant. According to the present study, results were concluded as follows.1) The period, from birth to ablactation, was the critical period for thedevelopment of foliate papillae taste buds number, morphology and expression ofα-gustducin in mice.2) Sweet exposure in lactation inhibited the development of foliate taste budsnumber, but it promoted the maturation of foliate taste buds.3) Sweet exposure in lactation hadn't significant effect on the expression ofα-gustducin in mice foliate taste buds.