Advanced Bionics

Electronic tongues

Electronic Tongue ​​(ET) have been developed and widely used in the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical fields, but their sensitivity and specificity are limited. In recent years, bioelectronic tongues incorporating biological materials and various types of transducers have been proposed to bridge the gap between the ET system and biological taste. In this work, an in vitro bionic cell based BioET is developed for the detection of bitter and umami, using for the first-time rat cardiomyocytes as the primary taste sensing element and microelectrode arrays (MEA) as secondary transducer. Primary cardiomyocytes from Sprague Dawley (SD) rats, which endogenously express bitter taste and umami receptors, were cultured on MEAs. Cells attached and grew well on the sensor surface, and syncytium formed for potential conduction and mechanical beating, indicating good biocompatibility of the surface coating. The specificity of this BioET was verified by testing different aromas and bitter compounds. The results show that BioET responds to bitter and umami compounds specifically among five basic flavors.