Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2000 Oct 26;407(6807):1007-11.
doi: 10.1038/35039512.

The mammalian sodium channel BNC1 is required for normal touch sensation

M P Price  1 , G R Lewin, S L McIlwrath, C Cheng, J Xie, P A Heppenstall, C L Stucky, A G Mannsfeldt, T J Brennan, H A Drummond, J Qiao, C J Benson, D E Tarr, R F Hrstka, B Yang, R A Williamson, M J Welsh
Affiliations

The mammalian sodium channel BNC1 is required for normal touch sensation

M P Price et al. Nature. .

Erratum in

  • Nature 2002 Jul 18;418(6895):352

Abstract

Of the vertebrate senses, touch is the least understood at the molecular level The ion channels that form the core of the mechanosensory complex and confer touch sensitivity remain unknown. However, the similarity of the brain sodium channel 1 (BNC1) to nematode proteins involved in mechanotransduction indicated that it might be a part of such a mechanosensor. Here we show that disrupting the mouse BNC1 gene markedly reduces the sensitivity of a specific component of mechanosensation: low-threshold rapidly adapting mechanoreceptors. In rodent hairy skin these mechanoreceptors are excited by hair movement. Consistent with this function, we found BNC1 in the lanceolate nerve endings that lie adjacent to and surround the hair follicle. Although BNC1 has been proposed to have a role in pH sensing, the acid-evoked current in cultured sensory neurons and the response of acid-stimulated nociceptors were normal in BNC1 null mice. These data identify the BNC1 channel as essential for the normal detection of light touch and indicate that BNC1 may be a central component of a mechanosensory complex.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

MeSH terms