The perception of quinine taste intensity is associated with common genetic variants in a bitter receptor cluster on chromosome 12.

ABSTRACT: The perceived taste intensities of quinine HCl, caffeine, sucrose octaacetate (SOA) and propylthiouracil (PROP) solutions were examined in 1457 twins and their siblings. Previous heritability modeling of these bitter stimuli indicated a common genetic factor for quinine, caffeine and SOA (22-28%), as well as separate specific genetic factors for PROP (72%) and quinine (15%). To identify the genes involved, we performed a genome-wide association study with the same sample as the modeling analysis, genotyped for approximately 610,000 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). For caffeine and SOA, no SNP association reached a genome-wide statistical criterion. For PROP, the peak association was within TAS2R38 (rs713598, A49P, P = 1.6 × 10(-104)), which accounted for 45.9% of the trait variance.

SUBMITTER: Reed DR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2951861 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature