A mechanism for touch

McCleskey, Edwin W.

doi:10.1038/d41586-019-02454-2

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21 August 2019

A mechanism for touch

Piezo proteins mediate the sense of touch. A near-complete structure of one such protein has been obtained, and the mechanism for converting mechanical signals into electrical ones has been probed in another.

Edwin W. McCleskey⁰

Edwin W. McCleskey
1. Edwin W. McCleskey is in the Science Program of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Redwood City, California 94002, USA.
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Our bodies can sense a wide array of mechanical stimuli: our sense of touch can distinguish between a soft breeze floating over the skin and a painful pinch, and other systems can detect the stretch of a muscle or even blood pressure. Our ability to sense these things requires an applied force to be turned into an electrical signal in the tiny endings of sensory neuronal cells that suffuse different tissues. Two related proteins, the Piezo1 and Piezo2 ion channels, mediate many of the mechanically stimulated processes in animals, by allowing positive ions to flow across the surface membrane of cells in response to force applied to the membrane¹. Such mechano-electric transduction is mediated by Piezo2 in sensory neurons and by Piezo1 in non-neuronal cells that respond to forces such as shear and osmotic force². Writing in Nature, Wang et al.³ report a remarkable, almost complete structure of Piezo2, and Lin et al.⁴ describe experiments that test how transduction occurs in Piezo1.

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Nature 573, 199-200 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02454-2

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