There have been researches conducted over the years on living human taste cells. The new research that was conducted at the Monell Center shows that living human taste cells can be maintained in a culture for at least seven months. This can help scientists find out a whole lot about the way the sense of taste works as well as the diseases that it can cost.
This will finally go on to address the concern of taste loss and impairment in the taste buds due to infection, radiation and exposure to chemicals. People who undergo chemotherapy lose their sense of taste and this makes them eat less, lose weight and then, have to fight malnutrition. At the same time, this kind of study gives hope to the patients and to scientists who will be able to study it in depth. They can also provide drugs that are able to help in the recovery and fighting of this syndrome.
The tiny bumps on the tongue called papillae are where the taste cells lie. They have the receptors to be able to work with the chemicals found in the food and generate the right kind of taste in the mouth be it sweet, salty, bitter, sour and so on. These are the very few cells that our body has that are actually capable of being able to regenerate themselves. They can develop new taste cells in a lab within 10 to 14 days.
For years on end, it was believed that taste cells need to be at the right attached place in order to be able to function well. However, previously there was limited scope to study them unlike now when you can go on and study in depth the function of human taste cells.
Monell cellular biologist Nancy E. Rawson, Ph.D observed that it was deeply embedded in the mind’s that it wouldn’t work. In order to go ahead and prove that this was a myth, the taste cells from rats were taken in the year 2006 and the culture maintained and studied. This is the same methodology that is used in humans as well.
The first step was for the scientists to go ahead and prove that these were indeed regenerative. They took tongue tissue samples from human volunteers and proved that the taste cells could really be able to re-grow in a culture.
Then, they went on to prove that these could be as functional as the normal ones and had the same molecular and physiological properties characteristic of the parent cells. They could be activated by particular taste molecules.
This kind of study and research can go on to help scientists establish cell culture models that work and have not been able to be studied before in viable culture conditions according to Ozdener.