New Modes of GPCR Signalling

Possible Involvement of TRPV1 in neonatal Febrile Seizure Mice
Yuan Xiao-ran Yu Hong-mei He Xiao-hua and Peng Bi-wen
Department of physiology, School of Basic Medical Science, Wuhan University
Febrile seizures (FSs) are acute symptomatic seizures that occur in response to a fever
in an age-specific manner. Although FS are largely benign, complex FS increase the
risk to develop temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). TRPV1 is a capsaicin/vanilloid-gated
cation channel expressed predominantly by primary nociceptive neurons and can
alternatively be activated by elevated temperatures (>43℃). Studies involving systemic
or intrahypothalamic capsaicin administration have suggested a role for TRPV1 in body
temperature control. To explore whether TRPV1 is involved in febrile seizure in
immature brain, behavioral responses were observed on neonatal C57BL6/J mice and
TRPV1 -/- mice. Hyperthermia was induced by warm air in 14-day-old mice. P14 pups in
TRPV1 -/- group showed prolonged latency, shorten duration and lower degree of
seizures compared to wild type mice. Y-maze and Open field test did not show much
difference in two groups at the age of P30. Western-blot and immunohistochemistry
were also used to find out the different expression of TRPV1 between the control group
and FS-model group in wild type mice. These results suggest that TRPV1 probably
participate in the generation of fever seizure and thus may provide new leads for
treatment of children at risk for complex FS and TLE.
Key Words: TRPV1; Febrile Seizure; behavior response; neonatal
Acknowledgment: This work was supported by National Natural Sciences Foundation
of China (No. 30970994 and 30770734), Program for New Century Excellent Talents,
Wuhan University (No. NCET-07-0630),the Scientific Research Foundation for the
Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars in State Education Ministry, and Research Fund
for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No. 20090141110010).
*Corresponding author: Email: pengbiwen@whu.edu.cn