Abstract
The hydrodynamic theory suggests that pain associated with stimulation of a sensitive tooth ultimately involves mechanotransduction as a consequence of fluid movement within exposed dentinal tubules. To determine whether putative mechanotransducers could underlie mechanotransduction in pulpal afferents, we used a single-cell PCR approach to screen retrogradely labeled pulpal afferents. The presence of mRNA encoding BNC-1, ASIC3, TRPV4, TRPA1, the α, β, and γ subunits of ENaC, and the two pore K+ channels (TREK1, TREK2) and TRAAK were screened in pulpal neurons from rats with and without pulpal inflammation. ASIC3, TRPA1, TREK1, and TREK2 were present in ~67%, 64%, 14%, and 10% of pulpal neurons, respectively. There was no detectable influence of inflammation on the proportion of neurons expressing these mechanotransducers. Given that the majority of pulpal afferents express ASIC3 and TRPA1, our results raise the possibility that these channels may be novel targets for the treatment of dentin sensitivity.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
