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Papers of the Week


Papers: 26 Sep 2020 - 2 Oct 2020


Animal Studies


2020 Sep 30


Elife


9

Antinociceptive modulation by the adhesion GPCR CIRL promotes mechanosensory signal discrimination.

Authors

Dannhäuser S, Lux TJ, Hu C, Selcho M, Chen JT-C, Ehmann N, Sachidanandan D, Stopp S, Pauls D, Pawlak M, Langenhan T, Soba P, Rittner HL, Kittel RJ
Elife. 2020 Sep 30; 9.
PMID: 32996461.

Abstract

Adhesion-type GPCRs (aGPCRs) participate in a vast range of physiological processes. Their frequent association with mechanosensitive functions suggests that processing of mechanical stimuli may be a common feature of this receptor family. Previously, we reported that the aGPCR CIRL sensitizes sensory responses to gentle touch and sound by amplifying signal transduction in low-threshold mechanoreceptors (Scholz et al., 2017). Here, we show that is also expressed in high-threshold mechanical nociceptors where it adjusts nocifensive behaviour under physiological and pathological conditions. Optogenetic experiments indicate that CIRL lowers cAMP levels in both mechanosensory submodalities. However, contrasting its role in touch-sensitive neurons, CIRL dampens the response of nociceptors to mechanical stimulation. Consistent with this finding, rat nociceptors display decreased expression during allodynia. Thus, cAMP-downregulation by CIRL exerts opposing effects on low-threshold mechanosensors and high-threshold nociceptors. This intriguing bipolar action facilitates the separation of mechanosensory signals carrying different physiological information.