Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified the protein that allows us to feel cold.
- Researchers have discovered that a protein called GluK2 helps with cold perception.
- This discovery allows us to better understand the mechanisms behind the perception of cold in winter, and why some people feel it differently.
- The study provides a potential therapeutic target to treat cold-related pain.
Do you have goosebumps and are shivering? Your ability to feel the cold in inclement weather is due to a protein called GluK2 (abbreviation for Glutamate ionotropic receptor type kainate subunit 2), according to researchers at the University of Michigan.
This discovery, which helps to better understand how cold is perceived by the body, was the subject of an article in the journal Nature Neuroscience on March 11, 2024.
Feeling cold: the key is in the GluK2 protein
A 2019 study had demonstrated the existence of a protein called GluK2 associated with the sensation of cold in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans that scientists are studying to understand sensory responses. However, the gene which codes for this protein in animals is also present in other species such as mice and humans. This discovery gave the idea to the University of Michigan team to verify its role in mammals.
She thus observed mice lacking the GluK2 gene and therefore unable to produce the protein of the same name. Through a series of experiments testing rodents’ behavioral responses to temperature, scientists found that they responded normally to warm, warm and cool temperatures, but not to harmful cold. They deduce that the GluK2 protein does have a role in the perception of cold.
Feeling cold: implications for health and well-being
The GluK2 protein is found primarily on neurons in the brain. There it receives chemical signals to facilitate communication between neurons. But this work confirms that it is also present in sensory neurons of the peripheral nervous system, outside the brain and spinal cord. “We now know that this protein serves an entirely different function in the peripheral nervous system, processing temperature signals instead of chemical signals to detect cold”comments Bo Duan, co-author of the study in a communicated.
For neuroscientist Shawn Xu, lead author of the research, the work allows us to understand the mechanism of temperature detection and could also help improve the care of people with sensory disorders. “This discovery of GluK2 as a cold sensor in mammals opens new avenues to better understand why humans have painful reactions to cold, and perhaps even offers a potential therapeutic target to treat this pain in patients whose cold sensation is overstimulated”such as patients treated with chemotherapy who have painful reactions to cold.
