Liu Qin, Vrontou Sophia, Rice Frank L, Zylka Mark J, Dong Xinzhong, Anderson David J
The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, 725 N. Wolfe St., Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.
Nat Neurosci. 2007 Aug;10(8):946-8. doi: 10.1038/nn1937. Epub 2007 Jul 8.
C-fiber tactile afferents are a subpopulation of unmyelinated cutaneous sensory neurons activated by gentle stroking. Using a genetically encoded tracer, we found that Mas-related G protein-coupled receptor B4 marks a rare subpopulation of unmyelinated, nonpeptidergic sensory fibers that exclusively innervate hairy skin. These fibers terminate in large arborizations similar in size and distribution to C-fiber tactile afferent receptive fields, suggesting that MrgprB4 may provide genetic access to these elusive neurons in mice.
C类纤维触觉传入神经是一类无髓鞘的皮肤感觉神经元亚群，通过轻柔抚摸激活。利用一种基因编码示踪剂，我们发现Mas相关G蛋白偶联受体B4标记了一类罕见的无髓鞘、非肽能感觉纤维亚群，这些纤维专门支配多毛皮肤。这些纤维以大的分支形式终止，其大小和分布与C类纤维触觉传入神经的感受野相似，这表明MrgprB4可能为在小鼠中研究这些难以捉摸的神经元提供遗传途径。
