Splicing it up: a variant of the N-type calcium channel specific for pain.
How would you make a drug that inhibits pain without side effects? The most obvious strategy for analgesia targets molecules that are expressed only on neurons used for pain. In this issue of Neuron, Bell et al. report a new splice variant of a calcium channel that controls neurotransmitter release and show that it is expressed primarily on nociceptors, the sensory neurons that trigger pain.
Zamponi
Gerald W
GW
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology Research Group, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
McCleskey
Edwin W
EW
D000818:Animals; D020864:Calcium Channels, N-Type / Q000235:genetics*; D004274:DNA, Recombinant; D014644:Genetic Variation; D010146:Pain / Q000235:genetics*
D020864:Calcium Channels, N-Type; D004274:DNA, Recombinant