RESEARCH ARTICLE
TRP Channels in Dental Pain
Gehoon Chung, Seog Bae Oh*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 6
First Page: 31
Last Page: 36
Publisher ID: TOPAINJ-6-31
DOI: 10.2174/1876386301306010031
Article History:
Received Date: 09/08/2012Revision Received Date: 091/08/2012
Acceptance Date: 16/08/2012
Electronic publication date: 08/3/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Despite the high incidence of dental pain, the mechanism underlying its generation is mostly unknown. Functional expression of temperature-sensitive transient receptor potential (thermo-TRP) channels, such as TRPV1, TRPV2, TRPM8, and TRPA1 in dental primary afferent neurons and TRPV1, TRPV2, TRPV3, TRPV4, and TRPM3 in odontoblasts, has been demonstrated and suggested as responsible for dental pain elicited by hot and cold food. However, dental pain induced by light touch or sweet substance cannot be explained by the role of thermo-TRP channels. Most of current therapeutics of dentin hypersensitivity is based on hydrodynamic theory, which argues that light stimuli such as air puff and temperature changes cause fluid movement within dentinal tubule, which is then transduced as pain. To test this theory, various TRP channels as candidates of cellular mechanotransducers were studied for expression in dental primary afferents and odontoblasts. The expression of TRPV1, TRPV2, TRPA1, TRPV4, and TRPM3 in trigeminal neurons and TRPV1, TRPV2, TRPV3, TRPV4 and TRPM3 in odontoblasts has been revealed. However, their roles as cellular mechanotransducers are controversial and contribution to generation of dental pain is still elusive. This review discusses recent advances in understanding of molecular mechanism underlying development of dental pain.
