Interaction of Sweet Proteins with Human Sweet Taste Receptor

Abstract

There is a dearth of low calorie sweeteners with minimal or no side effects. Natural molecules are obvious choice for they are expected to be easily metabolized. Despite the availability of natural sweet proteins like brazzein, monellin, thatumatin, etc., they are not suitable for hyperlipidemia patients. That necessitates the design of new peptide-based sweeteners. The present work attempts to understand the interaction of sweet proteins with human sweet taste receptor in order to understand the mechanism of sweetness. This is pertinent to mention that all these sweet proteins have little structural or sequence similarity.

Keywords:  sweet proteins, hyperlipidemia, brazzein, monellin, thatumatin