resiniferatoxin

Etymology
From +, in reference to the plant  , from which it is extracted.

Noun

 * 1)  A naturally occurring ultrapotent capsaicin analogue (having in its pure form a Scoville heat unit measure of 16,000,000,000) that activates the receptor TRPV1 (aka vanilloid receptor 1 or the capsaicin receptor) in a subpopulation of primary afferent sensory neurons involved in nociception.
 * 2) * 1992, Arpad Szallasi, Peter M. Blumberg, 27: Resiniferatoxin, P. Michael Conn (editor), Neurotoxins, (Academic Press), page 368,
 * An exciting recent advance in the vanilloid field has been our discovery that resiniferatoxin (RTX), a naturally occurring diterpene combining structural features of the phorbol ester tumor promoters and of capsaicin (see structures in Fig. 1), functions as an ultrapotent capsaicin analog (4—6) and that the esterification of other phorbol-related diterpenes with homovanillic acid at the C-20 position yields synthetic vanilloids of the RTX class with unique spectra of action (7).