Taste is one of the most basic and important sensations that is able to monitor the food quality and avoid intake of potential danger materials. Whether as an inevitable symptom of aging or a complication of cancer treatment, taste loss very seriously affects the patient's life quality. Taste bud organoids provide an alternative and convenient approach for the research of taste functions and the underlying mechanisms due to their characteristics of availability, strong maneuverability, and high similarity to the in-vivo taste buds. This review gives a systemic and comprehensive introduction to the preparation and application of taste bud organoids towards chemical sensing mechanisms. First, the basic structures and functions of taste buds will be briefly introduced. Then, the currently available approaches for the preparation of taste bud organoids are summarized and discussed, which are mainly divided into two categories, that is, the stem/progenitor cell-derived approach and the tissue-derived approach. Next, different applications of taste bud organoids in biomedicine are outlined based on their central roles such as disease modeling, biological sensing, gene regulation, and signal transduction. Finally, the current challenges, future development trends, and prospects of research in taste bud organoids are proposed and discussed.
Keywords: biosensors; chemical sensation; organoids; signal transduction; taste buds.
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