Gurmarin is a 35-residue

polypeptide Peptides (, ) are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds. Long chains of amino acids are called proteins. Chains of fewer than twenty amino acids are called oligopeptides, and include dipeptides, tripeptides, and tetrapeptides. A p ...

from the Asclepiad vine ''

Gymnema sylvestre ''Gymnema sylvestre'' is a perennial woody vine native to Asia (including the Arabian Peninsula), Africa and Australia. It has been used in Ayurvedic medicine. Common names include gymnema, Australian cowplant, and Periploca of the woods, and the ...

'' (Gurmar). It has been utilized as a

pharmacological Pharmacology is a branch of medicine, biology and pharmaceutical sciences concerned with drug or medication action, where a drug may be defined as any artificial, natural, or endogenous (from within the body) molecule which exerts a biochemica ...

tool in the study of sweet-taste transduction because of its ability to selectively inhibit the neural response to sweet taste in rats. This rat inhibition appears to have high specificity to sugar (sweetener) molecules like sucrose, glucose, and saccharin as well as the amino acid glycine. As a sweet-taste-suppressing protein, Gurmarin shows signs of being reversible in nature although having little to no effect on the sweet taste sensation in humans suggesting the protein is only active on rodent sweet taste receptors. ref: Appl Microbiol Biotechnol. 2012 Nov;96(3):619-30

References

Protein domains {{protein-stub