Modulation of TNF Release by the Innate Fear Odorant 2-Methylthiazoline Requires TRPA1-Mediated Signaling

The innate fear odorant 2-Methylthiazoline (2-MT) elicits highly robust innate fear and defensive behaviors, such as freezing, hypothermia and bradycardia via activation of transient receptor potential ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) channels. Activation of TRPA1-expressing vagus nerve fibers also regulates IL-1β induced hypothermia and reflex anti-inflammatory responses. However, it is unclear whether 2-MT can trigger an anti-inflammatory response via TRPA1 activation. Here, we demonstrate that 2-MT attenuates endotoxin-induced tumor necrosis factor (TNF) production in wild-type mice in TRPA1-dependent manner. Exposure to 2-MT induces a significant reduction in serum TNF in wild-type mice injected with endotoxin as compared to vehicle control mice (vehicle control vs. 2-MT; 1,123 ± 32.3 pg/mL vs. 714.1 ± 58.2 pg/mL; * p=0.02). However, 2-MT exposure fails to suppress endotoxin-induced TNF-release in TrpA1-knock out mice (vehicle control vs. 2-MT; 1,123 ± 32.3 vs. 948.7 ± 99.2 pg/mL; ns p=0.89). A single exposure to 2-MT during endotoxin injection also protects animals from lethal endotoxemia and significantly improves survival as compared to vehicle-exposed endotoxemic controls (vehicle control vs. single 2-MT Odor; 26.7% vs. 66.7% survival 120 hours post LPS injection). In addition, significant improvement in disease activity is observed in mice exposed to 2-MT odorant (vehicle control vs. single 2-MT Odor; disease activity: 0.5 ± 0.2 a.u. vs. 0.3 ± 0.1 a.u., * p=0.01). Collectively, these data characterize the anti-inflammatory effcacy of 2-MT and demonstrate that the modulation of TNF release by 2-MT requires TRPA1-mediated signaling. This work is supported in part by grants from NIH, NIGMS, 1R35 GM118182 to KJT and 1R01AR083159-01 to SSC. This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.