In rodent sensory neurons, acid-sensing ion channel 3 (ASIC3) has recently emerged as a particularly important sensor of nonadaptive pain associated with tissue acidosis. However, little is known about the human ASIC3 channel, which includes three splice variants differing in their C-terminal domain (hASIC3a, hASIC3b, and hASIC3c). hASIC3a transcripts represent the main mRNAs expressed in both peripheral and central neuronal tissues (dorsal root ganglia [DRG], spinal cord, and brain), where a small proportion of hASIC3c transcripts is also detected. We show that hASIC3 channels (hASIC3a, hASIC3b, or hASIC3c) are able to directly sense extracellular pH changes not only during acidification (up to pH 5.0), but also during alkalization (up to pH 8.0), an original and inducible property yet unknown. When the external pH decreases, hASIC3 display a transient acid mode with brief activation that is relevant to the classical ASIC currents, as previously described. On the other hand, an external pH increase activates a sustained alkaline mode leading to a constitutive activity at resting pH. Both modes are inhibited by the APETx2 toxin, an ASIC3-type channel inhibitor. The alkaline sensitivity of hASIC3 is an intrinsic property of the channel, which is supported by the extracellular loop and involves two arginines (R68 and R83) only present in the human clone. hASIC3 is thus able to sense the extracellular pH in both directions and therefore to dynamically adapt its activity between pH 5.0 and 8.0, a property likely to participate in the fine tuning of neuronal membrane potential and to neuron sensitization in various pH environments. sodium channels | nociception A cid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are depolarizing cationic channels gated by extracellular protons (1-3). Four genes encoding at least six subunits (ASIC1a, ASIC1b, ASIC2a, ASIC2b, ASIC3, and ASIC4) have been identified so far in rodents. Functional channels have been proposed to result from the trimeric association of subunits (4), leading to homomeric or heteromeric channels. ASICs are largely expressed in neurons, both in central and peripheral nervous systems. Whereas ASIC1a and ASIC2 are widely present in the rodent nervous system, the expression of ASIC1b and ASIC3 is primarily restricted to sensory neurons (5-7). The ASIC3 subunit is highly expressed in rat nociceptive neurons (8, 9). The expression pattern of ASIC subunits is less well documented in humans, where ASIC3 (10-12) has three variants differing in their C-termini (2). The physiological relevance and properties of these human variants have so far never been studied.Several physiological and/or physiopathological conditions, such as synaptic transmission, bone resorption, ischemia, inflammation, tumor development, or tissue incisions, are accompanied by extracellular acidifications. Moreover, tissue acidosis is well known to be painful (13) and inhibition of ASICs in healthy human volunteers (14, 15) has revealed the important role of these channels in sensing acid-induced pain provoked by c...