ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the role of mammalian transient receptor potential vanilloid (TRPV) channels in signal transduction in response to osmotic and mechanical stimuli, as well as provides comments on selected recent insights regarding other transient receptor potential (TRP) ion channels that respond to osmotic and mechanical cues. These “osmo- and mechano-TRPs” are TRPV1, TRPV2, TRPV4, transient receptor potential canonical (TRPC1), TRPC3, TRPC6, transient receptor potential ankyrin (TRPA1), TRPP2, TRPP3, TRPM3, transient receptor potential melastatin (TRPM4), TRPM7, and TPML3. Targeting osmomechano-TRPs for treatment of human disease has become a more compelling rationale since the field has been founded. In particular the arenas of pain and inflammation, skeletal pathophysiology and disease, and cardiovascular pathophysiology and disease appear to be areas of interest where nonincremental progress toward rationally guided medical diagnoses, prevention, and treatments could be imminent. TRPV4 was found to be a key osmosensing component in airway sensory nerve reflexes, as it induced activation of guinea pig airway-specific primary nodose ganglion cells.
