A, Example trace showing 20μM ryanodine (RY, gray column) inhibiting the bitter-evoked calcium response (10mM denatonium benzoate, DEN, black line) in a type II taste cell that was sensitive to the bitter stimulus but did not express VGCCs. The bitter response recovered when ryanodine was washed out. B, Analysis using a one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post-hoc analysis of the average denatonium-evoked peak responses found that 20μM ryanodine significantly reduced the denatonium-evoked response in these taste cells (n=22, **P=0.004). C, In type II taste cells that were sensitive to ryanodine, the evoked response was reduced an average of 50% by ryanodine (Inhibited). Compared to type II taste cells that were not sensitive to ryanodine (Not Inhibited), this was a significantly larger inhibition (Student’s t-test, n=22, ***P<0.0001). D, The area under the curve was integrated and compared for the denatonium-evoked calcium signals that were inhibited by ryanodine (RY effect) and the denatonium-evoked calcium responses that were not affected by ryanodine (No RY effect). An unpaired Student’s t-test found that the initial magnitude of the denatonium responses that were not inhibited by ryanodine was significantly smaller than the magnitude of the denatonium-evoked calcium signals that were inhibited by ryanodine (n=67, ***P=0.0002).