Chronic pain changes our immune systems
By Cynthia Lee
Newsroom
Chronic pain may reprogram the way genes work in the immune system, according to a new study by 91社区 researchers published in the journal Scientific Reports. 聽
鈥淲e found that chronic pain changes the way DNA is marked not only in the brain but also in T cells, a type of white blood cell essential for immunity鈥�, says Moshe Szyf, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at 91社区. 鈥淥ur findings highlight the聽devastating impact of chronic pain on other important parts of the body such as the immune system.鈥�
Chronic pain 鈥� pain that lasts six months or more -- is one of the most common causes of disability worldwide. Despite enormous efforts to find new therapeutic strategies, however, effective treatments for chronic pain remain elusive.
Using rat models
The all-91社区 team examined DNA from brains and white blood cells of rats, using a method that mapped DNA marking by a chemical called a methyl group. 鈥滿ethyl marks are important for regulating how these genes function,鈥� explains co-author Laura Stone, a professor in Dentistry and聽 researcher in the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain. This sort of chemical marking is part of the growing field of epigenetics, which involves modifications that turn genes 鈥榦n鈥� or 鈥榦ff鈥�, effectively reprogramming how they work.
鈥淲e were surprised by the sheer number of聽genes that were marked by the chronic pain -- hundreds to thousands of different genes were changed,鈥� adds Szyf. 鈥淲e can now consider the implications that chronic pain might have on other systems in the body that we don鈥檛 normally associate with pain.鈥�
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Possible targets for new pain medications
The findings could open new avenues to diagnosing and treating chronic pain in humans, the researchers suggest, as some of the genes found to be marked by chronic pain could also represent new targets for pain medications.
"Overlapping signatures of chronic pain in the DNA methylation landscape of prefrontal cortex and peripheral T cells" Renaud Massart, Sergiy Dymov, Magali Millecamps, Matthew Suderman, Stephanie Gregoire, Kevin Koenigs, Sebastian Alvarado, Maral Tajerian, Laura Stone, Moshe Szyf, Scientific Reports DOI: 10.1038/srep19615聽
