報名代號： 分組編號：PH093
Molecular Mimicking of Tea Phenolic Compounds as
Umami Ligands: A Molecular Docking Study
Chih-Chien Hung
a, Tzyy-Rong Jinn
b, Jason T. C. Tzen
c,
Feng-Yin Li
a*
a
Department of Chemistry, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40227, Taiwan
b
School of Chinese Medicine, China Medical University, Taichung, 40402, Taiwan
c
Graduate Institute of Biotechnology, National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, 40227, Taiwan
Keywords: tea; umami; phenolics; taste receptor; synergy
The phenolic compounds of tea are known to responsible to both the healthy effects and complex umami-like taste sensation. Compared to the prototypical umami compound, monosodium glutamate (MSG), with notorious Chinese Restaurant Syndrome, these tea phenolics can act as a healthy substitute. With the above consideration, we performed a molecular docking simulation to search the possible umami phenolics in tea beverages. To facilitate the investigation, umami receptor, such as T1R1, was constructed through homology modeling. The docking results suggested that several tea phenolic compounds can act as umami ligands and some other phenolic compounds can synergistically augmented the umami taste as enhnacers. This means that the tea phenolic compounds can trigger the umami sensation through the same moelcular mechaism by MSG and its
enhnacers. However the umami sensatino can not be equivalently replaced with any of the major tea phenolic compounds, such as Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). Regardless the induced fitness, the detailed molecular interactions between the tea umami phenolic compounds and the receptor were drastically different from those of prototypical umami compounds and the receptor. It seems that the tea phenolic compounds may be developed as a natural sweetener.
