Spider toxins activate the capsaicin receptor to produce inflammatory pain

Jan Siemens, Sharleen Zhou, Rebecca Piskorowski, Tetsuro Nikai, Ellen A. Lumpkin, Allan I. Basbaum, David King and David Julius ()
Additional contact information
Jan Siemens: University of California–San Francisco
Sharleen Zhou: University of California–Berkeley
Rebecca Piskorowski: University of California–San Francisco
Tetsuro Nikai: University of California–San Francisco
Ellen A. Lumpkin: University of California–San Francisco
Allan I. Basbaum: University of California–San Francisco
David King: University of California–Berkeley
David Julius: University of California–San Francisco

Nature, 2006, vol. 444, issue 7116, 208-212

Abstract: A taste for pain Three peptides isolated from the venom of the West Indian tarantula Psalmopoeus cambridgei have been found to promote pain and inflammation by activating the same neuronal receptor as capsaicin, the hot component of chilli peppers. This suggests that tarantulas and chillis use similar tactics to deter predators. The newly discovered peptides are also unusual because they trigger an excitatory response. Peptides with similar structures that bind to other ion channels are already known, but are inhibitory.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05285 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:444:y:2006:i:7116:d:10.1038_nature05285

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature05285

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().