Talk:Transient receptor potential
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There is a real need to make clear to what "transient" refers in a transient receptor potential, and the advice of the wider community is solicited to fill this need. The corresponding acronym, TRP, is appended to at least three classes of ion channel, which mediate the response of a cell to external stimuli (electrical charge, substances, and forces) by increasing or decreasing its selective permeability to particular ions. The effect of this change is to modify the potential difference between inside and outside of cell. Hence "receptor," for sensitivity to the environment, and "potential" for this difference. Does the "transience" suggest fatigue effects? Or, are there any "invariant receptor potentials" that need compared?
The explanation of the meaning of the acronym TRP is quite innacurate. In a normal fly, the photons stimulating the photoreceptors in the eye cause a sustained elevation in the electric potential of the cell. However, there is a mutant strain of Drosophila flies that becomes blind after long exposure to light. It was detected that in this particular mutant, the elevation in the potential of the cell after exposure to light was transient and not sustained. The mutant was then named Transient Receptor Potential (TRP), although at the time the cause for this defect was unknown (Cosens and Manning, 1969). Several years later a mutation in a putative channel was found to be responsible for this defect, and thus the channel was named TRP. (Montell, C. and Rubin, G. M., 1989 and Hardie, R. C. and Minke, B. 1992). Similar channels have been since cloned in a wide variety of organisms ranging from yeast to mammals. In a wide variety of cells there are several channels (other than TRPs) that can be activated in response to external stimuli, and they all change the cell potential. TRP refers only to a family of proteins with related sequence and structure, not to the means of activation of these proteins. 201.141.62.202 03:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Reverted edits by 70.187.18.140
Reverted edits by 70.187.18.140. It appears someone has posted their term or research paper inappropriately at the end of the article. Chet nc 16:26, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
