TRPV1 with a Twist

Kudos to Dr. Marna Erickson and her team at the University of Minnesota. They recently published excellent work demonstrating a relationship between TRPV1 -EGFR signaling and skin cancer.

Ann M. Bode, Yong-Yeon Cho, Duo Zheng, Feng Zhu, Marna E. Ericson, Wei-Ya Ma, Ke Yao, and Zigang Dong. Transient Receptor Potential Type Vanilloid 1 Suppresses Skin Carcinogenesis.Cancer Res., Feb 2009; 69: 905 - 913.

"TRPV1 interacts with EGFR, leading to EGFR degradation. Notably, the absence of TRPV1 in mice results in a striking increase in skin carcinogenesis. The TRPV1 is the first membrane receptor shown to have a tumor-suppressing effect associated with the down-regulation of another membrane receptor."

...dorsal skin samples (100 mum) were processed and immunostained. For the human skin cancer tissue array, we used anti- TRPV1 -(Neuromics), anti-EGFR (Cell Signaling), and Alexa Fluor 488 and 647-conjugated secondary antibodies. Mouse skin samples were immunostained...