For the receptors

The Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery of temperature and touch receptors

Polina Loseva, N+1

The winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2021 were David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian. One of them discovered the temperature receptor, the other — the touch receptor. You can read more about their research in the press release.

The first important discovery in this story was made by David Julius, in the late 1990s. He studied the reaction of cells to capsaicin — at that time they already knew that it was somehow connected with pain, but it was unknown exactly how the cells reacted to it. Julius and his team isolated a receptor for capsaicin, TRPV1, and only later, studying its physical properties, found that it is also sensitive to temperature — and is activated at approximately the temperatures that cause pain.

The laureates made the second discovery simultaneously — but independently. In 2002, Julius and Pataputyan, starting from the work of the first on thermoreceptors, discovered a receptor for cold, TRPM8, which is excited on cells under the action of menthol.

Finally, having dealt with the receptors for temperature sensitivity, Paraputyan switched to mechanical sensitivity. He discovered first one, and then a second receptor that respond to the touch of neurons — Piezo1 and Piezo2. Subsequently, it turned out that they provide not only touch, but also proprioception, that is, a sense of the position of the body in space, and also participate in the transmission of mechanical signals from internal organs, for example, stretched lungs or bladder.

Every year, among the Nobel Prize laureates, there is someone from the list of Clarivate, a company that collects its list of possible winners based on the citation of their articles. This year, for example, the agency's forecast included the discoverers of the nicotine receptor, hantaviruses, as well as interleukin-6 — the latest discovery led to the creation of one of the potential drugs for COVID-19. But the company did not guess with Julius and Pataputyan: their surnames did not appear in any of the Clarivate lists. But they have already shared two prestigious awards: Kavli Award in the field of neuroscience in 2020 and Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2021.

The laureates of the previous two years were also not included in any Clarivate forecasts. In 2019, the award went to William Kelin, Gregg Semenza and Sir Peter Ratcliffe. They investigated the mechanism by which cells detect and respond to oxygen deficiency.

In 2020, the prize was awarded to Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice for the discovery of the hepatitis C virus. Their work allowed not only to prove that he was really the culprit of hepatitis, but also opened the way to the development of antiviral drugs.

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