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A trio of ion channels takes the heat

Of the various temperature-sensitive ion channels identified previously, three have now been found to act in concert to detect painful heat and initiate protective reflexes.
  1. Rose Z. Hill

    1. Rose Z. Hill is in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA.

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  2. Diana M. Bautista

    1. Diana M. Bautista is in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, USA, and at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley.

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There’s nothing cosier than sitting by the fire on a cold night, and mammals have an amazing ability to find the perfect spot in which to warm themselves without being burnt. This ability is mediated by specialized heat-sensitive neurons of the somatosensory system that innervate the skin. These neurons are fine-tuned to detect the temperature at which pleasurable warmth turns into painful (noxious) heat, and are responsible for initiating protective reflexes and triggering avoidance behaviours. The search for temperature sensors in somatosensory neurons has uncovered several ion channels that are part of the transient receptor potential (TRP) family1–4, but the TRP channel or channels that are responsible for heat-evoked pain have remained unclear. In a paper in Nature, Vandewauw et al.5 report that three TRP channels work together to detect noxious heat in mice.

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Nature 555, 591-592 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02663-1

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