Involvement of Taste Receptors in the Oro-Sensory Perception of Nutrients in Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Fed Diets with Different Fatty Acid Profiles

Abstract

Taste perception plays an important role in an animal’s detection of nutrients, conveying key dietary information, fundamental for its growth and survival. Because alternative terrestrial ingredients are known to affect the feeding of rainbow trout (RT, Oncorhynchus mykiss), we aimed to assess the importance of taste receptors in detection. Using self-feeders, we examined the feeding behavior (30 days of a feeding trial followed by 10 days of a preference trial) of RT fed with a commercial diet (C), vegetable diets supplemented with linseed oil (V1) or algal oil (V2). During the feeding trial those fed V2 decreased their food intake. The preference trial revealed that fish preferred V2 v. C and V1 v. V2 for fish which had consumed V1 and C during their feeding trial. Mechanistically, taste receptors were mainly expressed in taste organs and regulated by diet, which indicated the function of the taste receptors. Some taste receptors for fatty acids (such as the ffar receptor) and amino acids (such as the tasr receptor) were highly expressed in the RT tongue. While ffar2a transcripts were upregulated by vegetal diets in the tongue, ffar1 and ffar4, known for important roles in mammals, were very low expressed and not found in the RT genome, respectively. Overall findings show that RT displayed the fundamental mechanisms for oro-gustatory perception of nutrients related to different diet composition.