REVIEW article
Front. Cell Dev. Biol.
Sec. Evolutionary Developmental Biology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcell.2025.1660529
Ectopic Taste Receptors in Animal Physiology: Evolutionary Conservation and Functional Diversification
Provisionally accepted
- Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Taste perception is crucial for animals to assess food's nutritional value while avoiding toxic substances. Recent decades have unveiled the presence of taste receptors beyond the oral cavity, expressed in diverse non-gustatory tissues including gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, reproductive, and neural tissues. These ectopically expressed taste receptors are implicated in a multitude of physiological processes such as the regulation of hormone secretion, nutrient sensing and digestive processes, pathogen defense, and modulation of locomotor abilities. Moreover, these receptors present potential pharmacological targets for therapeutic interventions in diseases related to the respiratory, digestive, and cardiovascular systems. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in understanding the distribution and functions of extraoral taste receptors in mammals, teleosts, insects, and nematodes, emphasizing the commonalities and variations among different species. The emerging paradigm positions taste receptors as polymodal sensors integrating environmental cues with physiological homeostasis beyond their canonical gustatory functions, offering new perspectives on sensory system evolution and organismal adaptation.
Keywords: Ectopic taste receptor, Mammal, teleost, Drosophila, nematode
Received: 06 Jul 2025; Accepted: 02 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Liang, Yi, Yu and Wu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Qi Wu, Southwest Medical University, Luzhou, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.