Preparation and application of taste bud organoids in biomedicine
towards chemical sensation mechanisms
Abstract
Taste is one of the most basic and important sensations that is able to
monitor the food quality and avoid intake of potential danger materials.
Whether as an inevitable symptom of aging or a complication of cancer
treatment, taste loss so seriously affects the patient’s life quality.
Taste bud organoids provide a great convenience for the research of
taste functions and the underlying mechanisms due to their
characteristics of availability, strong maneuverability, and high
similarity to the in-vivo taste buds. This review gives a systemic and
comprehensive introduction to the preparation and application of taste
bud organoids towards chemical sensing mechanisms. For the first, the
basic structure and function of taste buds in biomedicine will be brief
introduced. Then, the currently available approaches for the preparation
of taste bud organoids are summarized and discussed, which are mainly
divided into two categories, i.e. stem/progenitor cell-derived approach
and tissue-derived approach. For the next, different applications of
taste bud organoids in biomedicine are outlined based on their central
roles such as disease modeling, biological sensing, gene regulation, and
signal transduction. Finally, the current challenges, future development
trends and prospects of research in taste bud organoids are proposed and
discussed.