Nikolaev Yury A, Feketa Viktor V, Anderson Evan O, Schneider Eve R, Gracheva Elena O, Bagriantsev Sviatoslav N
Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
Department of Neuroscience, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06520, USA.
Sci Adv. 2020 Dec 16;6(51). doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abe6393. Print 2020 Dec.
The skin covering the human palm and other specialized tactile organs contains a high density of mechanosensory corpuscles tuned to detect transient pressure and vibration. These corpuscles comprise a sensory afferent neuron surrounded by lamellar cells. The neuronal afferent is thought to be the mechanical sensor, whereas the function of lamellar cells is unknown. We show that lamellar cells within Meissner and Pacinian corpuscles detect tactile stimuli. We develop a preparation of bill skin from tactile-specialist ducks that permits electrophysiological recordings from lamellar cells and demonstrate that they contain mechanically gated ion channels. We show that lamellar cells from Meissner corpuscles generate mechanically evoked action potentials using R-type voltage-gated calcium channels. These findings provide the first evidence for R-type channel-dependent action potentials in non-neuronal cells and demonstrate that lamellar cells actively detect touch. We propose that Meissner and Pacinian corpuscles use neuronal and non-neuronal mechanoreception to detect mechanical signals.
覆盖人类手掌及其他特殊触觉器官的皮肤含有高密度的机械感觉小体，这些小体能够检测瞬态压力和振动。这些小体由一个被层状细胞包围的感觉传入神经元组成。神经元传入被认为是机械传感器，而层状细胞的功能尚不清楚。我们发现，迈斯纳小体和环层小体内的层状细胞能够检测触觉刺激。我们开发了一种来自触觉专家鸭的喙部皮肤制备方法，该方法允许对层状细胞进行电生理记录，并证明它们含有机械门控离子通道。我们发现，迈斯纳小体的层状细胞利用R型电压门控钙通道产生机械诱发的动作电位。这些发现为非神经元细胞中R型通道依赖性动作电位提供了首个证据，并证明层状细胞能够主动检测触摸。我们提出，迈斯纳小体和环层小体利用神经元和非神经元机械感受来检测机械信号。
