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Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms

The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is famous for its longevity and unusual physiology. This eusocial species that lives in highly ordered and hierarchical colonies with a single breeding queen, also discovered secrets enabling somewhat pain-free living around 20 million years ago. Unlike mos...

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Autores principales: Smith, Ewan St. John, Park, Thomas J., Lewin, Gary R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192887/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32206859
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01414-w
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author Smith, Ewan St. John
Park, Thomas J.
Lewin, Gary R.
author_facet Smith, Ewan St. John
Park, Thomas J.
Lewin, Gary R.
author_sort Smith, Ewan St. John
collection PubMed
description The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is famous for its longevity and unusual physiology. This eusocial species that lives in highly ordered and hierarchical colonies with a single breeding queen, also discovered secrets enabling somewhat pain-free living around 20 million years ago. Unlike most mammals, naked mole-rats do not feel the burn of chili pepper’s active ingredient, capsaicin, nor the sting of acid. Indeed, by accumulating mutations in genes encoding proteins that are only now being exploited as targets for new pain therapies (the nerve growth factor receptor TrkA and voltage-gated sodium channel, Na(V)1.7), this species mastered the art of analgesia before humans evolved. Recently, we have identified pain insensitivity as a trait shared by several closely related African mole-rat species. One of these African mole-rats, the Highveld mole-rat (Cryptomys hottentotus pretoriae), is uniquely completely impervious and pain free when confronted with electrophilic compounds that activate the TRPA1 ion channel. The Highveld mole-rat has evolved a biophysical mechanism to shut down the activation of sensory neurons that drive pain. In this review, we will show how mole-rats have evolved pain insensitivity as well as discussing what the proximate factors may have been that led to the evolution of pain-free traits.
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spelling pubmed-71928872020-05-05 Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms Smith, Ewan St. John Park, Thomas J. Lewin, Gary R. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol Review Paper The naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) is famous for its longevity and unusual physiology. This eusocial species that lives in highly ordered and hierarchical colonies with a single breeding queen, also discovered secrets enabling somewhat pain-free living around 20 million years ago. Unlike most mammals, naked mole-rats do not feel the burn of chili pepper’s active ingredient, capsaicin, nor the sting of acid. Indeed, by accumulating mutations in genes encoding proteins that are only now being exploited as targets for new pain therapies (the nerve growth factor receptor TrkA and voltage-gated sodium channel, Na(V)1.7), this species mastered the art of analgesia before humans evolved. Recently, we have identified pain insensitivity as a trait shared by several closely related African mole-rat species. One of these African mole-rats, the Highveld mole-rat (Cryptomys hottentotus pretoriae), is uniquely completely impervious and pain free when confronted with electrophilic compounds that activate the TRPA1 ion channel. The Highveld mole-rat has evolved a biophysical mechanism to shut down the activation of sensory neurons that drive pain. In this review, we will show how mole-rats have evolved pain insensitivity as well as discussing what the proximate factors may have been that led to the evolution of pain-free traits. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2020-03-23 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7192887/ /pubmed/32206859 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01414-w Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Review Paper
Smith, Ewan St. John
Park, Thomas J.
Lewin, Gary R.
Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title_full Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title_fullStr Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title_full_unstemmed Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title_short Independent evolution of pain insensitivity in African mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
title_sort independent evolution of pain insensitivity in african mole-rats: origins and mechanisms
topic Review Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7192887/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32206859
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-020-01414-w
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