[CH] Vanilloid Receptors
Rob Solarion (solarion@1starnet.com)
Tue, 12 Feb 2002 12:00:50 -0600
The Dallas Morning News, By Science Writer Alexandra Witze
11 February 2002
Chile-heads, unite and thank your vanilloid receptors.
Mammals, including spice-loving humans, apparently feel the zing of a chile
because they are sensitive to a specific molecular interaction, biologists
have found. Birds, meanwhile, will gobble up hot peppers with no apparent
pain.
Biologists Sven-Eric Jordt and David Julius of the University of
California, San Francisco, tested how chicken cells responded to capsaicin,
the chemical in the vanilloid family thought to give chile peppers their
bite. The cells responded to heat and other stimuli, but had virtually no
reaction to the capsaicin, the scientists reported last week in "Cell".
Chile peppers benefit because mammals won't touch them, while birds will
eat them and spread their seeds over great distances.