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Sensory transduction

Merkel cells bring a delicate touch

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 15, pages 348–349 (2014)Cite this article

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Both studies found that dissociated and purified murine Merkel cells exhibit touch-evoked inward currents in vitro. In ex vivo skin–nerve preparations, Maksimovic and colleagues showed that optogenetic depolarization of Merkel cells induced action potentials in slowly adapting type I (SAI) afferent fibres located in touch domes. By contrast, optogenetic hyperpolarization of Merkel cells suppressed touch-evoked activity in associated SAI fibres. Together, these results suggest that Merkel cells actively control sensory neuron firing in response to touch.

The authors recorded activity in touch domes taken from atonal homologue 1 conditional knockout (Atoh1CKO) mice, which lack epidermal Merkel cells. Touch-dome sensory fibres from Atoh1CKO mice were still mechanically sensitive, but they fired fewer spikes during skin movement than did wild-type fibres. Compared with wild-type afferents, Atoh1CKO touch-dome afferents were also quicker to adapt to sustained touch and fired fewer action potentials in response to constant and increasing pressure. Thus, Merkel cells boost touch-stimulated signalling in sensory neurons.

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References

  1. Maksimovic, S. et al. Epidermal Merkel cells are mechanosensory cells that tune mammalian touch receptors. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13250 (2014)

  2. Woo, S.-H. et al. Piezo2 is required for Merkel-cell mechanotransduction. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13251 (2014)

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  1. Natasha Bray
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Bray, N. Merkel cells bring a delicate touch. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 348–349 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3748

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