USCB's study of fruit flies shows that dietary experience can change taste preferences

if you want to know how you like a food you didn't like, says
, a professor of neurology in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of
A new
by
and
Duggan may provide answers. This work focuses on the core issues of neurobiology
how
experience can change animal behavior. The study, just published in Nature Neuroscience, was conducted by
, a team of
Monty
co
-authors
Yali Zhang
,
Rakesh Raghuwanshi
and
Wei Shen
.most widely concerned, but little known behavioral change is that dietary experience can change taste preferences. This is critical to survival, as all animals, from insects to humans, must make changes to the changing food environment. Changes in taste are well known in human
.
, for example, people in the Far East and Western countries have different taste preferences. Individuals who migrate from one culture to another often have to learn to accept local food, even if some of it is originally offensive.using fruit flies (black belly fruit flies) as animal models, researchers have revealed how animals change their taste preferences. "This study is based on trying to understand how animals learn to like foods they didn't like before."
wanted to
taste preferences because it's a behavior that's common in all animals," Monty said. Thefocused on camphor, an offensive but safe food additive. Camphor has long been used as the main flavoring ingredient for many desserts, including ice cream. They found that if fruit flies were fed a camphor diet over a long period of time, they would begin to learn to eat foods that contained camphor. This is not the case with repulsive toxic flavoring agents such as quinine and marziline.shown above is the TRPL channel on the membrane of the taste-like subject neuron, which has been activated by camphor (pictured is a stick model). The synapses of triangular bipolar taste neurons are touching camphor. The green ring in the blue cytoste represents the TRPL channel.this change occurs through a mechanism involving changes in
GRNs
, an animal peripheral taste receptor neuron, which occurs in a hairy structure called a sensory device. Of particular importance,
Montell
team identified the cellular and molecular basis for taste plasticity.Long-term feeding of camphor (only a few days for fruit flies that survive for about two months) leads to a reduction in the instantaneous
TRPL
) channel of fruit flies, a channel directly activated by camphor that allows ions , such as calcium, to enter cells. For humans, this change means that repeated consumption of foods we don't like for weeks or months may lead us to eventually accept them.a decline in fruit flies' aversion to camphor occurs through a mechanism. This is a mechanism that involves the degradation of
TRPL
proteins by
E3
Ubiquitin connective enzyme, an enzyme that degrades a specific protein substate) or
Ube3a
ase. As
TRPL

,
synactic connections also decline by
,
but that's not enough to make the taste adapt.
"
we don't know what activates
Ube3a
(
E3
Ubigan connective enzyme), but it can be assumed that it is regulated by calcium.
,
we believe this is due to a change in behavior due to a
TRPL
level drop and a decrease in synth connections."
” “
Not only did we find ubibinization important and lead to degradation, but we also found that the mutant
Ube3a
prevents the plasticity of the taste.
"
he continued,
"
is because the
TRPL
cannot degrade without ubibination when
Ube3a
is lacking. This emphasizes that
TRPL
level of TRPL forms the basis of this mechanism.
”An interesting phenomenon is that the process of accepting camphor as a food additive is reversible. When fruit flies return to a long-term camphor-free feeding state, the condition, which has a higher camphor acceptance due to the decrease in
TRPL
and synth connections, reverses.Montell
and his team speculate that calcium ions flow in as camphor increases the activity of
TRPL
, which leads to an increase in ubibinization in the channel.

so ubially connected enzymes themselves may activate
in some way,"
said,

's understanding of the mechanism is a problem for future research.
” These findings not only show how animal diets alter the molecular and cell control pathways of taste preferences, but also reveal the general neural mechanisms that induce changes in taste preferences in other animals, including mammals.
"
our work has increased the possibility that taste-caused by long-term feeding of a particular food has a reversible change in the cells. This possibility could help to study similar phenomena that occur in humans.
"
" concludes that if we can really understand this well, we will one day be able to apply it in the food industry.
”