UC San Diego

Cancer is a prevalent disease that has been researched for many years to find a cure. A potential focus is the popular chemotherapeutic, paclitaxel (PTX), which has been known to treat a number of metastatic cancers with high efficacy. However, PTX induces neuropathy that results in acute pain, muscle weakness, among other symptoms. This has caused research to delve into the effects of PTX and the ability to halt these symptoms when using it for treatment. Several studies have shown that PTX influences the activity of TRPV-4, a mechanically gated calcium ion channel, and there has been evidence that suggests that intracellular calcium signals are involved in the pathogenesis of peripheral neuropathy caused by PTX. In coincidence, if TRPV-4 inhibition in dorsal root ganglion cells (DRGs) can be proved with fruition, this can potentially reduce cell death in DRGs. Because of PTX’s potential effect on TRPV-4 channels, it is important to determine if inhibiting these channels would have any effect on calcium dynamics. Pretreatment of wild-type mice DRGs with TRPV-4 inhibitors, GSK-2193874 and HC-067047, was used to determine if specific inhibitors of TRPV-4 have an effect on calcium channels within DRGs in this study.