Human and Mouse TRPA1 Are Heat and Cold Sensors Differentially Tuned by Voltage

• DOI: 10.3390/cells9010057
• Publication Date: 2019-12-24T15:28:43Z
• Authors: Viktor Sinica; Lucie Zimova; Kristyna Barvikova; Lucie Macikova; Ivan Barvik; Viktorie Vlachova
• Keywords: 0301 basic medicine; trp channel; noxious heat; Hot Temperature; thermoTRP; noxious cold; Models, Biological; Article; Mice; 03 medical and health sciences; Species Specificity; TRP channel; Animals; Humans; Voltage-Dependent Anion Channels; Amino Acid Sequence; TRPA1 Cation Channel; ankyrin receptor subtype 1; QH573-671; thermotrp; Cold Temperature; Electrophysiology; HEK293 Cells; transient receptor potential; Cytology

Transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 channel (TRPA1) serves as a key sensor for reactive electrophilic compounds across all species. Its sensitivity to temperature, however, differs among species, a variability that has been attributed to an evolutionary divergence. Mouse TRPA1 was implicated in noxious cold detection but was later also identified as one of the prime noxious heat sensors. Moreover, human TRPA1, originally considered to be temperature-insensitive, turned out to act as an intrinsic bidirectional thermosensor that is capable of sensing both cold and heat. Using electrophysiology and modeling, we compare the properties of human and mouse TRPA1, and we demonstrate that both orthologues are activated by heat, and their kinetically distinct components of voltage-dependent gating are differentially modulated by heat and cold. Furthermore, we show that both orthologues can be strongly activated by cold after the concurrent application of voltage and heat. We propose an allosteric mechanism that could account for the variability in TRPA1 temperature responsiveness.