Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0423716 (Neuropathic pain)
 1,417 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Neuropathic pain is associated with hyperexcitability and intrinsic firing of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons. These phenotypical changes can be long lasting, potentially spanning the entire life of animal models, and depend on altered expression of numerous proteins, including many ion channels. Yet, how DRGs maintain long-term changes in protein expression in neuropathic conditions remains unclear. DNA methylation is a well-known mechanism of epigenetic control of gene expression and is achieved by the action of three enzymes: DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) 1, 3a, and 3b, which have been studied primarily during development. We first performed immunohistochemical analysis to assess whether these enzymes are expressed in adult rat DRGs (L4-5) and found that DNMT1 is expressed in both glia and neurons, DNMT3a is preferentially expressed in glia and DNMT3b is preferentially expressed in neurons. A rat model of neuropathic pain was then used to determine whether nerve injury may induce epigenetic changes in DRGs at multiple time points after pain onset. Real-time RT PCR analysis revealed robust and time-dependent changes in DNMT transcript expression in ipsilateral DRGs from spared nerve injury (SNI) but not sham rats. Interestingly, DNMT3b transcript showed a robust upregulation that appeared already 1 week after surgery and persisted at 4 weeks (our endpoint); in contrast, DNMT1 and DNMT3a transcripts showed only moderate upregulation that was transient and did not appear until the second week. We suggest that DNMT regulation in adult DRGs may be a contributor to the pain phenotype and merits further study.
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PMID:Expression of DNA methyltransferases in adult dorsal root ganglia is cell-type specific and up regulated in a rodent model of neuropathic pain. 2515 11

Accumulating evidence suggests that epigenetic alterations lie behind the induction and maintenance of neuropathic pain. Neuropathic pain is usually a chronic condition caused by a lesion, or pathological change, within the nervous system. Neuropathic pain appears frequently after nerve and spinal cord injuries or diseases, producing a debilitation of the patient and a decrease of the quality of life. At the cellular level, neuropathic pain is the result of neuronal plasticity shaped by an increase in the sensitivity and excitability of sensory neurons of the central and peripheral nervous system. One of the mechanisms thought to contribute to hyperexcitability and therefore to the ontogeny of neuropathic pain is the altered expression, trafficking, and functioning of receptors and ion channels expressed by primary sensory neurons. Besides, neuronal and glial cells, such as microglia and astrocytes, together with blood borne macrophages, play a critical role in the induction and maintenance of neuropathic pain by releasing powerful neuromodulators such as pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, which enhance neuronal excitability. Altered gene expression of neuronal receptors, ion channels, and pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, have been associated to epigenetic adaptations of the injured tissue. Within this review, we discuss the involvement of these epigenetic changes, including histone modifications, DNA methylation, non-coding RNAs, and alteration of chromatin modifiers, that have been shown to trigger modification of nociception after neural lesions. In particular, the function on these processes of EZH2, JMJD3, MeCP2, several histone deacetylases (HDACs) and histone acetyl transferases (HATs), G9a, DNMT, REST and diverse non-coding RNAs, are described. Despite the effort on developing new therapies, current treatments have only produced limited relief of this pain in a portion of patients. Thus, the present review aims to contribute to find novel targets for chronic neuropathic pain treatment.
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PMID:Epigenetic Modifications Associated to Neuroinflammation and Neuropathic Pain After Neural Trauma. 2993 May