A TARANTULA’S bite is hot stuff. It causes pain by triggering the same receptors on nerve cells as chillies do.
The venom of Psalmopoeus cambridgei – the Trinidad chevron tarantula, a native of the West Indies – activates a nerve cell receptor called TRPV1, say David Julius and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco. This receptor also responds to capsaicin, the chemical that gives chilli its hot, burning taste.
Julius’s team tested the venom on normal human embryonic kidney cells, which contain the TRPV1 receptor, and other, modified cells without the receptor. Normal kidney cells produced a surge of calcium ions when exposed to the venom,…
