We have discovered a method to enhance sweetness comprising the use of a sweetener at a sub-to near- threshold concentration which is used in combination with a suprathreshold concentration of another sweetener. The sweetener used at the near-threshold concentration is selected based on its likely binding site in the human sweet taste receptor. The invention relates to the identification of agents that can modulate the taste response in humans (such as sweet taste enhancers) through assays based on a novel sweet receptor protein, heterologous expression systems containing nucleic acid constructs forming said novel sweet receptor protein, and the use of the novel sweet receptor protein in screening.
