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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Gastroenterology. 2009 Jul 24;137(6):2084–2095.e3. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2009.07.048

Figure 3. TRPA1−/− mice display selective deficits in visceral afferent function.

Figure 3

A Splanchnic i) Mesenteric and ii) Serosal colonic afferents showed dramatically reduced stimulus response functions to focal compression of mechanoreceptive fields with static von Frey hair (vfh) application (70mg–2000mg) in TRPA1−/− mice (P<0.0001, 2-way ANOVA). This was also significant at most individual stimulus intensities (*P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, Bonferroni post-hoc test).

B. i) Pelvic serosal colonic afferents were hyposensitive TRPA1−/− mice. ii) Mucosal afferents also displayed reduced stimulus response functions in TRPA1−/− mice. iii) Muscular/mucosal afferents, which respond to both low intensity mucosal stroking and low intensity stretch, only displayed significant deficits in the mucosal component (P<0.001, 2-way ANOVA; *P<0.05, ***P<0.001, Bonferroni test). iv) Mechanosensory function of stretch sensitive muscular afferents was unaltered in TRPA1−/−. Changes in length of tissue in response to stretch (1–15g) were similar in both genotypes (not shown).

C. Abdominal EMG responses of conscious mice to colorectal balloon distensions (5×80mmHg) were significantly reduced in TRPA1−/− mice (**N=5, P<0.01), implicating TRPA1 in the signaling of colonic pain.

D. Two classes of gastroesophageal vagal afferents were recorded; mucosal and tension receptors. The deletion of TRPA1 caused modest but significant deficits in i) mucosal mechanosensory function (P<0.01, 2-way ANOVA).