1. Whole-cell voltage-clamp techniques were used to investigate the capsaic
in-, voltage- and time-dependent properties of the rat vanilloid receptor (
rVR1) stably expressed in human embryonic kidney (HEK) 293 cells.
2. At a holding potential of -70 mV, application of capsaicin (0.03-30 mu M
) to HEK 293 cells expressing the rVR1 receptor led to the appearance of in
ward currents (EC50, 497 nM; Hill coefficient, n(H), 2.85) which were rever
sibly antagonized by 10 mu M capsazepine.
3. Current-voltage relationships, determined using depolarizing or hyperpol
arizing voltage ramps, had reversal potentials close to 0 mV, exhibited sub
stantial outward rectification and possessed a region of negative slope con
ductance at holding potentials negative to around -70 mV. Further experimen
ts indicated that the outward rectification and the region of negative slop
e conductance did not result from external block of the channel by either B
a2+, Ca2+ or Mg2+.
4. During our characterization of rVR1, it became apparent that the rectifi
cation behaviour of this receptor was not entirely instantaneous as might b
e expected for a ligand-gated ion channel, but rather displayed clear time-
dependent components. We characterized the kinetics of these novel gating p
roperties in a series of additional voltage-step experiments.
5. The time-dependent changes in rVR1-mediated conductance due to membrane
depolarization or repolarization occurred with bi-exponential kinetics. On
depolarization to +70 mV the time-dependent increase in outward current dev
eloped with mean time constants of 6.7 +/- 0.7 and 51.8 +/- 18.4 ms, with t
he faster time constant playing a dominant role (64.4 +/- 3.8%). Similar ki
netics also described the decay of 'tail currents' observed on repolarizati
on. Furthermore, these time-dependent changes appeared to be unaffected by
the removal of extracellular divalent cations and were not significantly vo
ltage dependent.
6. Our data reveal that rVR1 exhibits substantial time- and voltage-depende
nt gating properties that may have significance for the physiology of senso
ry transduction of nociceptive signals.