Taste buds are collections of 50-100 specialized epithelial cells that bind subsets of chemical-taste stimuli present in the oral cavity. Taste-transducing cells are generally thought to exist as types1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, initially based on electron microscopy criteria that were later correlated with molecular markers. Type II cells express phospholipase C-beta 2 (PLCβ2)2 and transient receptor potential cation channel, subfamily M member 51 and include cells that transduce sweet, bitter, and umami1,10. Type III cells express carbonic anhydrase 4 (Car4)11 and synaptosomal-associated protein 258 and denote cells that primarily respond to sour taste11. The cells that transduce saltiness have not been as clearly delineated12,13,14, but could potentially include Type I, Type II and Type III cells15,16,17,18,19.The taste-bud environment is complex and dynamic, given that taste-transducing cells continuously turn over throughout adulthood and are replaced by basal progenitors3,20,21. These taste-transducing cells connect to pseudo-unipolar nerve fibers from the geniculate and petrosal ganglia, which pass taste information to the brainstem. These neurons have primarily been categorized based on the kind of taste information they carry22,23 because information about their morphology has been elusive until recently24. Type II cells communicate with nerve fibers via calcium homeostasis modulator protein 1 ion channels25, whereas Type III cells communicate via classical synapses8,26. Further characterization of taste bud cells-including transducing cell type lineages, factors that influence their differentiation, and the structures of connecting arbors are all areas of active investigation.
Taste-bud studies have been hindered by several technical challenges. The heterogenous and dense tissues that make up the tongue significantly reduce antibody permeability for immunohistochemistry27,28,29. These obstacles have necessitated sectioning protocols that result in the splitting of taste buds across sections so that measurements are either approximated based on representative sections or summed across sections. Previously, representative thin sections have been used to approximate both volume values and transducing-cell counts30. Thicker serial sectioning allows for the imaging of all taste-bud sections and the summing of measurements from each section31. Cutting such thick sections and selecting only whole taste buds biases sampling towards smaller taste buds32,33,34. Nerve innervation estimates from sectioned taste buds have been based on analyses of pixel numbers13,35, if quantified at all36,37,38. These measurements completely ignore the structure and number of individual nerve arbors, because arbors are split (and usually poorly labeled). Lastly, although peeling away the epithelium does permit entire taste buds to be stained39,40, it also removes taste-bud nerve fibers and could disrupt the normal relationships between cells. Therefore, investigations of the structural relationships within taste buds have been limited because of this disruption caused by staining approaches.
Whole-structure collection eliminates the need for representative sections and allows the determination of absolute-value measurements of volumes, cell counts, and structure morphologies41. This approach also increases accuracy, limits bias, and reduces technical variability. This last element is important because taste buds show considerable biological variability both within34,42 and across regions43,44, and whole taste-bud analyses allow absolute cell numbers to be compared between control and experimental conditions. Furthermore, the ability to collect intact taste buds permits the analysis of the physical relationships between different transducing cells and their associated nerve fibers. Because taste-transducing cells may communicate with each other45 and do communicate with nerve fibers46, these relationships are important for normal function. Thus, loss-of-function conditions may not be due to a loss of cells, but instead to changes in cell relationships. Provided here is a method for collecting whole taste buds to achieve the benefits of absolute measurements for refining volume analyses for both taste buds and their innervations, taste-cell counts and shapes, and for facilitating analyses of transducing-cell relationships and nerve-arbor morphologies. Two workflows are also presented downstream of this novel whole-mount method for tissue preparation: 1) for analyzing taste bud volume and total innervation and 2) for sparse-cell genetic labeling of taste neurons (with subsets of taste-transducing cells labeled) and subsequent analyses of taste-nerve arbor morphology, numbers of taste-cell types and their shapes, and the use of image analysis software to analyze the physical relationships between transducing cells and those between transducing cells and their nerve arbors. Together, these workflows provide a novel approach to tissue preparation and for the analyses of whole taste buds and the complete morphology of their innervating arbors.