A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan and Children’s Hospital Boston shows that the TRPV3 receptor – a molecular sensor for warm temperatures – plays a key role in maintenance of the skin barrier and hair growth and could perhaps also be linked to the development of skin cancer. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and one of its ligands, transforming growth factor-α (TGF-α), were known to regulate skin and hair growth and the new study shows that TRPV3 is a key component of the EGFR signalling pathway. Activation of TRPV3 was found to lead to release of TGF-α, which activates EGFR. Activation of EGFR, in turn, increases TRPV3 channel activity, forming a positive feedback loop. Like animals with naturally occurring loss-of-function mutations in the genes for EGFR or TGF-α, TRPV3 knockout mice were found to have curly coats and whiskers.
In the TRPV3 knockout mice, the outer layer of the skin was found to be thinner than normal and to have a dry scaly texture which resulted from impaired terminal differentiation of keratinocytes. The study suggests that small molecule activators of TRPV-3 could be used to treat a variety of skin injuries and diseases such as burns, bed sores, eczema, psoriasis, itch, and fungal infections.
One cautionary note is that mice with overactive EGFR or TGF-α are hairless and develop skin cancers. Upregulation of EGFR has also been linked to a number of human cancers and drugs targeting EGFR are an expanding class of cancer treatments. Although mice overexpressing TRPV3 have not been shown to have an increased number of tumours, this is something that would need to be investigated further. The study is published in the journal Cell.