5. Conclusions
alertness, food-borne
In summary, we show that post-prandial, plasma-typical concentrations of artificial sweeteners altered a resting state transcriptional profile of their cognate taste receptors, as well as factors typically orchestrating innate immunity in peripheral blood leukocytes towards a more priming-related status, involving factors of pro-inflammatory signaling. Their differential transcriptional kinetics suggest cytokines or taste and immune receptors as early or late discriminants, respectively, between the pre-intervention control and sweetener intervention groups.We further show that beyond altering the transcriptional profile of sweetener-cognate taste receptors and immune factors, NNS at post-prandial plasma concentrations indeed facilitated an fMLF-induced cellular CaWe, therefore, hypothesize that taste receptors of immune cells are sensors for food-borne stimuli, enabling a post-prandial, flexible, and reversible alertness of our immune system.