Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-9-2009
Description
This study examined the effect of menthol, an agonist for transient receptor potential melastatin 8 (TRPM8) ion channels, to increase intracellular Ca2+ concentration, [Ca2+]i, in human glioblastoma cells (DBTRG cells), which resulted in activation of the large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ membrane ion channels (BK channels). Voltage ramps applied over 300 ms from -100 to 100 mV resulted in membrane currents with marked inwardly- and outwardly-rectifying components. Paxilline (2 M) abolished the outwardly-rectifying current. Outwardly-rectifying on-cell patch currents were increased markedly by menthol (100 M) added to the bath. The estimated on-cell conductance of these channels was 253 pS. Kinetic analysis showed that added menthol increased channel open probability and mean open frequency after 5 min. In a similar time course menthol increased [Ca 2+]i, and this increase was abolished either by added paxilline, tetraethylammonium ion or by Ca2+-free external solution. Finally, menthol stimulated the rate of DBTRG cell migration into scratch wounds made in confluent cells, and this also was inhibited by paxilline or by tetraethylammonium ion. We conclude that menthol, a TRPM8 agonist, increases DBTRG cell [Ca2+]ithat in turn activates membrane BK ion channels. Inhibition of BK channels by paxilline reverses menthol-stimulated increase of [Ca2+]iand of cell migration. Thus, BK channels function to maintain elevations in [Ca2+]ineeded to sustain increases in DBTRG cell migration.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Citation Information
Wondergem, Robert; and Bartley, Jeremy W.. 2009. Menthol Increases Human Glioblastoma Intracellular CA2+, BK Channel Activity and Cell Migration. Journal of Biomedical Science. Vol.16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/1423-0127-16-90 PMID: 19778436 ISSN: 1021-7770
Copyright Statement
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.