Touch sensation requires the mechanically gated ion channel ELKIN1. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38422143/)

These scientists wanted to understand how our sense of touch works. They discovered that there is a special channel in our bodies called ELKIN1 that helps us feel things when we touch them. They studied mice that didn't have this channel and found that they couldn't feel touch as well as normal mice. By adding ELKIN1 back into the mice without it, they were able to restore their ability to feel touch.

They also did experiments on human cells to see if ELKIN1 was important for touch in people too. They found that when they removed ELKIN1 from human cells, the cells couldn't sense touch as well. This shows that ELKIN1 is really important for helping us feel things when we touch them, both in mice and in humans.

Chakrabarti S., Klich JD., Khallaf MA., Hulme AJ., Sanchez-Carranza O., Baran ZM., Rossi A., Huang AT., Pohl T., Fleischer R., Furst C., Hammes A., Begay V., Hornberg H., Finol-Urdaneta RK., Poole K., Dottori M., Lewin GR. Touch sensation requires the mechanically gated ion channel ELKIN1. Science. 2024 Mar;383(6686):992-998. doi: 10.1126/science.adl0495. Epub 2024 Feb 29.