Spices and Odorants as TRP Channel Activators

Abstract

Flavors and odorants are important aspects in our daily life controlling a diversity of selection processes like food intake, social interactions, aversion or love. The detection of flavor and odorant compounds by our sensory organs for taste, olfaction and chemesthesis are important for the detection and discrimination among chemical cues in the environment. Flavors and odorants have impact on food selection as well as social interaction by being influential for feelings of pleasure and discontent, sexuality and mood. Most of flavors and odorants originate from spice plants like capsaicin from chili or vanillin, the odorous principle of vanilla. They activate a large set of receptors and ion channels. In this review, we summarize the recent findings regarding the effects of flavors and odorants on the activity of the transient receptor channel family (TRPtransient receptor potential (TRP)) and their potential role in olfaction, taste and chemesthesis. Potential health benefits of spices are discussed in the light of their bioavailability of the flavors and odorants after systemic intake.