title: Vampire bats exhibit evolutionary reduction of bitter taste receptor genes common to other bats.
abstract: The bitter taste serves as an important natural defence against the ingestion of poisonous foods and is thus believed to be indispensable in animals. However, vampire bats are obligate blood feeders that show a reduced behavioural response towards bitter-tasting compounds. To test whether bitter taste receptor genes (T2Rs) have been relaxed from selective constraint in vampire bats, we sampled all three vampire bat species and 11 non-vampire bats, and sequenced nine one-to-one orthologous T2Rs that are assumed to be functionally conserved in all bats. We generated 85 T2R sequences and found that vampire bats have a significantly greater percentage of pseudogenes than other bats. These results strongly suggest a relaxation of selective constraint and a reduction of bitter taste function in vampire bats. We also found that vampire bats retain many intact T2Rs, and that the taste signalling pathway gene Calhm1 remains complete and intact with strong functional constraint. These results suggest the presence of some bitter taste function in vampire bats, although it is not likely to play a major role in food selection. Together, our study suggests that the evolutionary reduction of bitter taste function in animals is more pervasive than previously believed, and highlights the importance of extra-oral functions of taste receptor genes.
authors: Department of Zoology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People's Republic of China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Hong
authors: Department of Zoology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, People's Republic of China huabinzhao@whu.edu.cn.
authors: Huabin
authors: H
authors: Zhao
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002685:Chiroptera / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D011544:Pseudogenes; D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D013045:Species Specificity; D000098706:Taste Receptors, Type 2
chemical_list: D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D043562:Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled; C431926:taste receptors, type 1; D000098706:Taste Receptors, Type 2
keywords: bitter; diet; pseudogenization; taste receptor; vampire bats