# Oral Complex Carbohydrate Sensing

> **NIH NIH R01** · OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $306,967

## Abstract

SUMMARY
Carbohydrates play a significant role in the human diet and the extent of their consumption directly impacts
human health. In order to control carbohydrate consumption, it is critical to understand how the gustatory system
responds to them. Recently, we reported that humans can taste glucose-based oligosaccharides and that their
detection is independent of the known sweet receptor. Building upon these findings, this proposal seeks to
establish the range of oligosaccharides that humans can taste and further to determine the structural
characteristics of oligosaccharides that enable their perception by humans. This project has two overarching
hypotheses: (1) that humans can taste a wide range of oligosaccharides, and (2) that taste detection depends
on the molecular structures of oligosaccharides with respect to the types of monomer building blocks, chain
length, position and number of glycosidic linkages, and terminal residues. These two hypotheses will be tested
by using a range of naturally existing, well-defined oligosaccharides and selected derivatives. Two functionally
different groups of oligosaccharides will be considered: (a) starch-derived digestible oligosaccharides that are
primary sources of dietary energy and (b) non-starch oligosaccharides that are not digested by humans but are
considered beneficial to health (e.g., prebiotics). Recognizing that commercially available oligosaccharides are
heterogeneous “cocktails” with undefined profiles, we propose to purify or isolate target oligosaccharides.
Accordingly, an important additional outcome of this project will be publically available protocols for the
preparation of well-defined, natural and derivatized oligosaccharides for human testing. These compounds
should prove to be valuable candidate ligands for future studies aimed at the molecular characterization of
oligosaccharide receptor(s).

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10356079
- **Project number:** 5R01DC017555-03
- **Recipient organization:** OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Juyun Lim
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $306,967
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-04-01 → 2024-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10356079

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10356079, Oral Complex Carbohydrate Sensing (5R01DC017555-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10356079. Licensed CC0.

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