Degranulation of human mast cells induced by capsaicin. (a) Human mast cells HMC-1 incubated in bath solution in the absence of the TRPV1-specific agonist capsaicin. (b) HMC-1 cells having been superfused for 5 min with bath solution containing 1 μM capsaicin. The arrows point to the degranulating cell. (c) Percentage of degranulated HMC-1 cells in the absence and presence of 500 nM capsaicin (exposition time 10 min, values present averages of 3 independent experiments SEM).
