Development of ectodermal and endodermal taste buds

The sense of taste is mediated primarily by taste buds on the tongue. These multicellular sensory organs are induced, patterned and become innervated during embryogenesis such that a functional taste system is present at birth when animals begin to feed. While taste buds have been considered ectodermal appendages, this is only partly accurate as only fungiform taste buds in the anterior tongue arise from the ectoderm. Taste buds found in the posterior tongue actually derive from endoderm. Nonetheless, both anterior and posterior buds are functionally similar, despite their disparate embryonic origins. In this review, I compare the development of ectodermal vs endodermal taste buds, highlighting the many differences in the cellular and molecular genetic mechanisms governing their formation.