Systematic prediction of the biological functions of TAS2R10 using positive co-expression analysis

Type 2 taste receptor 10 (TAS2R10), belonging to the TAS2R family of bitter receptors, is widely expressed in extra-oral tissues. However, its biological roles beyond bitterness sensing in the tongue have remained largely elusive. The present study aimed to perform a positive co-expression analysis using 60,000 Affymetrix expression arrays and 5,000 The Cancer Genome Atlas datasets to uncover such roles. Based on the functional enrichment analysis, it was indicated that in the Gene Ontology (GO) category biological process, TAS2R10 was mostly involved in ‘cellular protein metabolic process’, ‘protein modification process’, ‘cellular protein modification process’ and ‘cellular component assembly’. In the GO category cellular component, the co-expressed genes were accumulated in ‘Spt-Ada-Gcn5 acetyltransferase (SAGA)-type complex’ and ‘SAGA complex’, and in the category molecular function, they were concentrated in ‘hexosaminidase activity’, ‘cytoskeletal adaptor activity’, ‘cyclin binding’ and ‘β-N-acetylhexosaminidase activity’. Of note, it was indicated that TAS2R10 may be involved in ‘ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis’, which may provide a starting point to fully investigate the detailed functions of TAS2R10 in the future. TAS2R10 was also indicated to be associated with human diseases, i.e. ‘Salmonella infection’. Overall, the present study was the first to perform a comprehensive bioinformatics analysis of the functions of TAS2R10 and provide insight regarding the notion that this gene may have crucial roles beyond bitterness sensing.