Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Dental Research
This Article
Right arrow Figures Only
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Park, C.-K.
Right arrow Articles by Oh, S.B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Park, C.-K.
Right arrow Articles by Oh, S.B.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Biological

Eugenol Inhibits Sodium Currents in Dental Afferent Neurons

C.-K. Park1,{dagger}, H.Y. Li1,{dagger}, K.-Y. Yeon1, S.J. Jung2, S.-Y. Choi1, S.J. Lee1, S. Lee3, K. Park1, J.S. Kim1 and S.B. Oh1,*

1 Department of Physiology and
3 Program in Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, College of Dentistry and Dental Research Institute, BK21 Program, Seoul National University, 28-2 Yeongeon-Dong Chongno-Ku, Seoul 110-749, Korea; and
2 Department of Physiology, College of Medicine, Kangwon National University, Chunchon 200-710, Korea

Correspondence: * corresponding author, odolbae{at}snu.ac.kr

Although eugenol is widely used in dentistry, little is known about the molecular mechanisms responsible for its anesthetic properties. In addition to calcium channels, recently demonstrated by our group, there could be another molecular target for eugenol. Using a whole-cell patch-clamp technique, we investigated the effect of eugenol on voltage-gated sodium channel currents (INa) in rat dental primary afferent neurons identified by retrograde labeling with a fluorescent dye in maxillary molars. Eugenol inhibited action potentials and INa in both capsaicin-sensitive and capsaicin-insensitive neurons. The pre-treatment with capsazepine, a competitive antagonist of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), failed to block the inhibitory effect of eugenol on INa, suggesting no involvement of TRPV1. Two types of INa, tetrodotoxin (TTX)-resistant and TTX-sensitive INa, were inhibited by eugenol. Our results demonstrated that eugenol inhibits INa in a TRPV1-independent manner. We suggest that INa inhibition by eugenol contributes to its analgesic effect.

Key Words: eugenol • trigeminal ganglion neurons • voltage-gated sodium channels

Journal of Dental Research, Vol. 85, No. 10, 900-904 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/154405910608501005
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?