Loss of the sense of touch in fingertips and toes is one of the earliest sensory dysfunctions in patients receiving chemotherapy with anti-cancer drugs such as vincristine. However, mechanisms underlying this chemotherapy-induced sensory dysfunction is incompletely understood. Whisker hair follicles are tactile organs in non-primate mammals which are functionally equivalent to human fingertips. Here we used mouse whisker hair follicles as a model system and applied the pressure-clamped single-fiber recording technique to explore how vincristine treatment affect mechanoreceptors in whisker hair follicles. We showed that in vivo treatment of mice with vincristine impaired whisker tactile behavioral responses. The pressure-clamped single-fiber recordings made from whisker hair follicle afferent nerves showed that mechanical stimulations evoked three types of mechanical responses, rapidly adapting response (RA), slowly adapting type 1 response (SA1) and slowly adapting type 2 response (SA2). Vincristine treatment significantly reduced SA1 responses but did not significantly affect RA and SA2 responses. Our findings suggest that SA1 mechanoreceptors were selectively impaired by vincristine leading to the impairment of in vivo whisker tactile behavioral responses.

指尖和脚趾的触觉丧失是接受长春新碱等抗癌药物化疗的患者最早出现的感觉障碍之一。然而，这种化疗引起的感觉功能障碍的潜在机制尚不完全清楚。胡须毛囊是非灵长类哺乳动物的触觉器官，其功能与人类指尖相同。在这里，我们使用小鼠胡须毛囊作为模型系统，并应用压力夹钳单纤维记录技术来探索长春新碱处理如何影响胡须毛囊中的机械感受器。我们表明，在体内用长春新碱治疗小鼠的胡须触觉行为反应受损。由胡须毛囊传入神经制成的压力钳制单纤维记录显示，机械刺激引起三种类型的机械反应，快速适应反应 (RA)、缓慢适应 1 型反应 (SA1) 和缓慢适应 2 型反应 (SA2) . 长春新碱治疗显着降低了 SA1 反应，但没有显着影响 RA 和 SA2 反应。我们的研究结果表明，长春新碱选择性地损害了 SA1 机械感受器，导致体内胡须触觉行为反应的损害。