Transcription Factors In Regulation Of The Thermo-TRPs In Bat Brain

Thermoregulation is a key factor for animal survival.Temperature-sensitive TRPs(thermo-TRPs)are a class of temperature sensing proteins.They have been classified into three categories based on their active thresholds of temperature.First,the hotsensitive TRP(heat-activated TRPs,h-TRPs)channel proteins(e.g.,TRPV1 to TRPV4).Second,the warm-sensitive TRP(warm-activated TRPs,w-TRPs)channel proteins(e.g.,TRPM2,TRPM4,and TRPM5).Third,the cold-sensitive TRP(cold-activated TRPs,c-TRPs)channel proteins(e.g.,TRPA1,TRPC5,and TRPM8).Hibernation is a evolved survival strategy against cold and hungry.We found that the expression level of h-TRPs is increased in torpid bats during hibernation and that of w-TRPs and c-TRPs is increased in summer active bats.This suggests that hibernating bats maintain high sensitivity to warm in a cold environment and active bats keep high sensitivity to cold in a warm surrounding.Since the thermo-TRPs play a significant role in mammals in response to temperature changes,it is interesting to explore the expression and regulation of the thermo-TRPs in different physiological states of bats.Using bioinformatics analysis,we found that some transcription factors in POU and HOX families may interact and bind to the regulation regions of certain thermoTRP genes.Then the quantitative real-time fluorescence PCR(qPCR),Western blotting(WB),the dual-luciferase reporter gene assay,and mouse experiments were used in this study to learn a possible mechanism of TFs in regulation of the thermo-TRPs.We reported the expression patterns of the thermo-TRPs and their TFs in different physiological states of bats.We confirmed for the first time that POU5F1 regulates the expression of TRPC5 gene.It was found that the mRNA expression level of HOXC13 is positively correlated with the of TRPV2,TRPV3,and TRPV4.Moreover,it is highly possible that Trpa1 is a heat sensitive channel in mice.Our study provides a new insight in regulation of the thermo-TRPs by TFs in hibernating bats.