TRP Channel Pharmacology

Photopharmaceuticals can be reversibly controlled with excellent temporal precision. This generally recommends them as reagents for studying inherantly rapid-response systems with inbuilt switch-off kinetics, including signal integration and cascade transmission systems in biology. The challenge is to create photopharmaceuticals with sufficient biochemical specificity, potency, and robustness (repeatability of action / solubility / ease of transfer between model systems).

TRP channels form a family of 28 ion channels, playing prime roles in sensory integration of simultaneous signal inputs (temperature, pH, chemical ligands, etc) as well in the bulk mineral transport (homeostasis) needed for cell survival and replication. As part of the DFG Transregio consortium SFB152 TRiPs to Homeostasis we are creating new photopharmaceutical modulators of TRP channels, for high-temporal-precision studies of their functional roles in vitro and in vivo.

BTDAzo: the first TRPC5-selective photoswitchable modulator, applied from cell culture to tissue slice investigations (Angewandte 2022)	26E01: a novel, selective, nontoxic blocker for TRPV3 (Cell Calcium 2020)