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Cold perception and cold receptors
Kužílková, Johana Abigail ; Žurmanová, Jitka (advisor) ; Ptáková, Alexandra (referee)
Cold perception is a crucial sensory phenomenon for the survival of most organisms. It facilitates the selection of appropriate thermoregulatory responses necessary for maintaining organismal integrity and aids in spatial orientation. However, the mechanisms underlying cold perception remain incompletely understood. Central to this process are cold receptors, proteins capable of depolarizing cells and eliciting action potentials in response to cold stimuli. This study aims to review and understand the current literature on two key aspects related to cold perception. Firstly, it seeks to elucidate how contemporary knowledge explains an organism's ability to discern a wide range of cold temperatures. Secondly, it endeavours to explore the identified or hypothesized cold receptors and the extent of our knowledge regarding their functional role in the perception of cold. Key words: Cold perception, cold activated receptors, TRPM8, TRPA1, TRPC5
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Mechanisms of Activation and Modulation of Ion Channels Specific for Nociceptive Neurones
Touška, Filip ; Vlachová, Viktorie (advisor) ; Paleček, Jiří (referee) ; Tureček, Rostislav (referee)
Human body detects potentially damaging stimuli by specialized sensory nerve endings in the skin, the nociceptors. Their membranes are equipped with ion channels, molecular sensors, coding the outside stimuli into the trains of action potentials and conducting them to the higher brain centers. The most prominent group of transduction ion channels is the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel family followed by ion channels responsible for generation and conduction of action potentials from the periphery to the brain, the voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs). Understanding the mechanisms how particular stimulus is encoded and processed is of particular importance to find therapeutics for various types of pain conditions. We characterized the properties of VGSC subtypes NaV1.9 and NaV1.8 at high temperatures. We showed that NaV1.9 undergo large increase in current with increasing temperatures and significantly contribute to the action potential generation in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Ciguatoxins (CTXs) are sodium channels activator toxins causing ciguatera fish poisoning, a disease manifested by sensory and neurological disturbances. We elucidated the mechanism of CTX- induced cold allodynia, a pathological phenomenon where normally innocuous cool temperatures are perceived as pain. We...
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