What is it about?
We found that a component of herbal medicines that has also been used to investigate pain-related signalling pathways in animals also directly activates an important ion channel involved in processing changes in temperature and detecting noxious chemicals in the air.
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Why is it important?
The compound we investigated, NDGA, is being investigated as an anti-cancer agent. It is important to know that NDGA and derivatives are likely to have acute, unpleasant effects when administered, and are also likely to directly effect basic physiological parameters like blood pressure.
Perspectives
Lots of compounds activate TRPA1, and we were investigating channel activation pathways when we stumbled on these effects of NDGA. It is easy to find alternative compounds for use in vitro, doing so for studies in animals is harder...it is difficult to know what the wider implications of this work are beyond providing a caution that NDGA is a not a selective lipoxygenase inhibitor, and it may be affecting pain pathways through several mechanisms. Of course, it does make me wonder whether any of the supposed anticancer activity of NDGA could arise from activation of TRPA1 on tumour cells....
Professor Mark Connor
Macquarie University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Nordihydroguaiaretic acid activates hTRPA1 and modulates behavioral responses to noxious cold in mice, Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, September 2014, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/prp2.79.
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