Sweet-tasting and sweetness-inducing proteins from fruits of African plants

When screening tropical vegetation from Africa for unusual taste properties, Inglett and May (1,2) rediscovered three outstanding plants. Thaumatococcus Daniellii , first described by Daniell in 1855 (3), and Dioscoreophyllum Cumminsii , described in 1895 (4), both bear intensely sweet-tasting fruits. Synsepalum Dulcificum , a shrub described as early as 1852 by Daniell (5), produces berries that have such remarkable sweetness-inducing properties that they are better known as ‘miracle fruit’. The sweet fruits most probably have attracted the attention of natives as well as of animals since time immemorial and they are used by the natives in some regions to sweeten their palm wine.