About the Authors

Xia Li

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Weihua Li

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Hong Wang

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Jie Cao

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Kenji Maehashi

¤ Current address: Department of Fermentation Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Tokyo, Japan

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Liquan Huang

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Alexander A Bachmanov

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Danielle R Reed

Affiliation Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Véronique Legrand-Defretin

Affiliation The WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, United Kingdom

Gary K Beauchamp

Affiliations Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America , Department of Psychology, School of Arts and Sciences and Department of Anatomy, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Joseph G Brand

To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: brand@monell.org

Affiliations Monell Chemical Senses Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America , Department of Biochemistry, School of Dental Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America , Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Competing Interests

HW, JC, KM, and LH declare that they have no competing interests of a financial, professional, or personal nature. VLD is an employee of the Masterfoods division of Mars. GKB is on an advisory board to the WALTHAM Centre. Patents describing the uses of the feline receptors have been filed, and name as inventors: XL, WL, JGB, DRR, and AAB.

Author Contributions

XL, LH, DRR, VLD, GKB, and JGB conceived and designed the experiments. XL, WL, HW, JC, KM, and JGB performed the experiments. XL, WL, JC, AAB, and DRR analyzed the data. XL, HW, LH, AAB, and JGB contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools. XL, AAB, DRR, GKB, and JGB wrote the paper.