Comparative study of hGPR120 receptor self-assembled nano-gold sensor and tissue sensor

Abstract GPR120 (FFAR4) is a free fatty acid receptor, which transmits a signal of excess fatty acid. When a person ingests too much fatty acid, free fatty acid appears in the intestine. At this time, it can sense the free fatty acid and thus control a person's appetite. In this study, we constructed three sensors for the detection of 14 natural fatty acids. Then the interconnected allosteric interactions (Ka) of the three sensors are compared, and their dynamics are also studied. The results show that all three receptor sensors can sense 14 fatty acids. And the Pearson correlation coefficient of Ka between the hGPR120 nanogold sensor and the hGPR120 self-assembled taste bud tissue sensor reached 0.966. This indicated that the hGPR120 nanogold sensor could mimick the ability of the hGPR120 receptor to transmit signals to cells and could be used to study intracellular signaling and activation of this receptor. We also found that the surface of the cattle taste bud tissue does’t contain the GPR120 receptor. We could use the differences between human and cattle taste bud tissues to develop self-assembled human receptor sensors to provide novel technologies and detection platforms for human receptor-ligand interaction studies and drug screening.