It has been utilized as a pharmacological tool in the study of sweet-taste transduction because of its ability to selectively inhibit the neural response to sweet taste in rats.

[1] This rat inhibition appears to have high specificity to sugar (sweetener) molecules like sucrose, glucose, and saccharin as well as the amino acid glycine.

It is a member of inhibitor cystine knot peptides (ICK), which are highly stable proteins formed by three disulfide bonds.

This demonstrates that gurmarin has the ability to inhibit the activation of the receptor, which therefore affects the impact on feeding behavior and the maintenance of energy.

It is found that the interaction site of gurmarin is the apical membrane of taste cells, which is notably influenced by the pH environment.

Some solitary tract neurons had exhibited the ability to continuously respond to the gurmarin inhibitory effects of sweet taste, even after treatment.

[11] As a herb, gurmarin being a polypeptide of Gymnema sylvestre, it has a broad range of therapeutic effects for other health conditions.