Progress on the Tasting Mechanism and Computer Aided Analysis of Food Taste-Modulating Peptides

Food taste-modulating peptides mainly interact with salt taste receptor ENaC, TRPV1 or TMC4, umami receptor T1R1/T1R3, sweet receptor T1R2/T1R3, bitter receptor T2R and kokumi receptor CaSR to induce PLCβ2/IP3 or cAMP/PKA pathway to achieve taste transduction. Computer aided analysis techniques such as molecular docking, dynamic simulation, virtual screening and deep learning can efficiently, accurately and widely identify and develop novel taste-modulating peptides, which can effectively promote the high-quality development of nutrition and health food industry. This paper aims to present the latest research progress in the field of taste-modulating peptides, including the human taste perception mechanism, the taste mechanism of food taste-modulating peptides, as well as computer aided analysis techniques. This provides ideas for cost reduction, efficiency enhancement, and subsequent in-depth research in the era of Big Compute and development of new taste-modulating peptide products in the field of food taste-modulating peptides development.