Photopharmacology: Using light to control cold sensors

TRPM8 ion channels are located on cell membranes and are known as receptors that recognize cold and respond to menthol, the cooling agent in peppermint. Additionally, these channels influence pain perception and play key roles in many diseases. This makes them promising targets for the development of new drugs to fight cancer, metabolic diseases, inflammation, and more.

Researchers have been studying the TRPM8 ion channel to better understand its complex functions and develop innovative treatments. The LMU research team led by Prof. Michael Mederos y Schnitzler (Walther Straub Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology) and Dr. David B. Konrad, in collaboration with Prof. Dirk Trauner (University of Pennsylvania) and Prof. Ursula Storch (University of Regensburg), Important breakthroughs have been made in this regard. Researchers have developed an innovative molecule called azomenthol that enables precise control of TRPM8 channels using light, as they report in the journal applied chemistry.

Mederos y Schnitzler emphasizes: “Using azomenthol, it is possible for the first time to specifically activate TRPM8 channels using UV light and to deactivate them again using blue light, and to do this in a spatiotemporally precise and reversible manner.” Using light as a control, say the authors Tools for biological processes have enormous therapeutic potential. “For example, this photopharmacological approach could help avoid systemic side effects that occur during traditional chemotherapy,” Mederos y Schnitzler points out. “Advances in this area therefore open up exciting new prospects for the development of novel therapies that may be more precise in their action and milder in their effects.”