Taste Cells in the Mudpuppy, Necturus maculosus, Are Electrically Coupled

The functional organization of vertebrate taste buds is not well understood. Although individual taste cells may be functional units, it is also possible that a stimulus may activate a subset of taste cells that are electrically coupled and respond as a unit. We have investigated the existence of such electrically coupled units by injecting taste cells with a fluorescent dye, Lucifer yellow (LY), which crosses gap junctions in a number of epithelial and neural tissues. LY-coupling indicates the existence of electrical coupling between cells. We also injected LY into lingual epithelial cells to test for dye coupling between epithelial and taste cells.