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Umami Sensation Works Like Pac-Man
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The umami receptor has a motif, called a Venus flytrap motif, which looks like a hinge where the binding sites for glutamate and nucleotides reside. Glutamate can bind at the inner wedge of the hinge and the nucleotides at the edges. Upon binding, a signal is sent to the taste center of the brain, which says: umami! The binding of glutamate is strongly enhanced if a nucleotide binds at the same time.
Cartoon illustration of the synergistic mechanism demonstrating, by a Pac-Man analogy, the enhanced binding of glutamate upon co-binding of a nucleotide.