Stroke the soft body of a newborn fruit fly larva ever-so-gently with a freshly plucked eyelash, and it will respond to the tickle by altering its movementan observation that has helped scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) uncover the molecular basis of gentle touch, one of the most fundamental but least well understood of our senses.
Our ability to sense gentle touch is known to develop early and to remain ever-present in our lives, from the first loving caresses our mothers lavish on us as newborns to the fading tingle we feel as our lives slip away. But until now, scientists have not known exactly how humans and other organisms perceive such sensations.
In an article published online this week in the journal Nature, the UCSF team has identified the exact subset of nerve cells responsible for communicating gentle touch to the brains of Drosophila larvaecalled class III neurons. They also uncovered a particular protein called NOMPC, which is found abundantly at the spiky ends of the nerves and appears to be critical for sensing gentle touch in flies.
Without this key molecule, the team discovered, flies are insensitive to any amount of eyelash stroking, and if NOMPC is inserted into neurons that cannot sense gentle touch, those neurons gain the ability to do so.
"NOMPC is sufficient to confer sensitivity to gentle touch," said Yuh Nung Jan, PhD, a professor of physiology, biochemistry and biophysics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at UCSF. Jan led the study with his wife Lily Jan, PhD, who is also a UCSF professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
The work sheds light on a poorly understood yet fundamental sense through which humans experience the world and derive pleasure and comfort.
Jan added that while the new work reveals much, many unanswered questions remain, including the exact mechanism through which NOMPC detects m
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| Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-4608 University of California - San Francisco Source:Eurekalert |
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