8.A.184.  The TransMembrane Protein Tmem160 (Tmem160) Family

The transmembrane protein, Tmem160, plays a role in nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain. An extensive behavioral assessment suggested a pain modality- and entity-specific phenotype in male Tmem160 global knockout (KO) mice: delayed establishment of tactile hypersensitivity and alterations in self-grooming after nerve injury. In contrast, Tmem160 seems to be dispensable for other nerve injury-induced pain modalities, such as non-evoked and movement-evoked pain, and for other pain entities. Mechanistically, global KO males exhibit dampened neuroimmune signaling and diminished TRPA1-mediated activity (TC# 1.A.4.6.3) in cultured dorsal root ganglia. Neither these changes nor altered pain-related behaviors are observed in global KO female and male peripheral sensory neuron-specific KO mice. Thus, Tmem160 is a sexually dimorphic factor contributing to the establishment, but not maintenance, of discrete nerve injury-induced pain behaviors in male mice (Segelcke et al. 2021). The human ortholog is 188 aas long with 3 TMSs. It shows weak similarity with the N-terminal domain of TC# 1.B.80..2.1 which also seems to have 3 N-terminal TMSs.