ReviewProceedings. Biological sciences2022
The evolution of sour taste.
Review in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- The island biology of the host microbiome.Trends in microbiology · 2026Review
- Identification of Key Determinants for Perceived Sweetness and Sourness in Fresh Grapes.Food science & nutrition · 2026Article
- Comparative Analysis of Fermented Flatbreads in the Horn of Africa and the Southern Arabian Peninsula: A Picture of Biocultural Diversity.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Receptors and signaling for sour and salty: the ionic taste qualities.Chemical senses · 2025Review
- Comparative Analysis of Taste Perception Among Airline Pilots, Construction Workers, and Office Employees.Cureus · 2024Article
- Avoiding alkaline taste through ionotropic receptors.iScience · 2024Article
- Physiological Integration of Taste and Metabolism.The New England journal of medicine · 2024Review
- Fermentation technology as a driver of human brain expansion.Communications biology · 2023Review
- Acid and Alkali Taste Sensation.Metabolites · 2023Review
- Relishing the taste of food.Nature food · 2023Article
- Nematode homologs of the sour taste receptor Otopetrin1 are evolutionarily conserved acid-sensitive proton channels.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2023Article
- Somatosensory and Gustatory Profiling in the Orofacial Region.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Recent Progress in the Study of Taste Characteristics and the Nutrition and Health Properties of Organic Acids in Foods.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The evolutionary history of sour taste has been little studied. Through a combination of literature review and trait mapping on the vertebrate phylogenetic tree, we consider the origin of sour taste, potential cases of the loss of sour taste, and those factors that might have favoured changes in the valence of sour taste-from aversive to appealing. We reconstruct sour taste as having evolved in ancient fish. By contrast to other tastes, sour taste does not appear to have been lost in any major vertebrate taxa. For most species, sour taste is aversive. Animals, including humans, that enjoy the sour taste triggered by acidic foods are exceptional. We conclude by considering why sour taste evolved, why it might have persisted as vertebrates made the transition to land and what factors might have favoured the preference for sour-tasting, acidic foods, particularly in hominins, such as humans.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.