Guangdong Province Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Department of Physiology, Zhongshan School of Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510080, China.
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Malignant Tumor Epigenetics and Gene Regulation, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510120, China.
Curr Neuropharmacol. 2022;20(6):1011-1021. doi: 10.2174/1570159X19666210924104757.
Chronic pain is a common distressing neurological disorder and about 30% of the global population suffers from it. In addition to being highly prevalent, chronic pain causes a heavy economic and social burden. Although substantial progress has been achieved to dissect the underlying mechanism of chronic pain in the past few decades, the incidence and treatment of this neurological illness is yet not properly managed in clinical practice. While nerve injury-, chemotherapy- or inflammation-induced functional regulation of gene expression in the dorsal root ganglion and spinal cord are extensively reported to be involved in the pathogenic process of chronic pain, the specific mechanism of these altered transcriptional profile still remains unclear. Recent studies have shown that epigenetic mechanisms, including DNA/RNA methylation, histone modification and circular RNAs regulation, are involved in the occurrence and development of chronic pain. In this review, we provide a description of research on the role of epigenetic mechanism in chronic pain, summarize the latest clinical and preclinical advance in this field, and propose the potential directions for further research to elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying the pathogenesis of chronic pain.
慢性疼痛是一种常见的令人痛苦的神经系统疾病，约有 30%的全球人口患有这种疾病。除了发病率高之外，慢性疼痛还会造成沉重的经济和社会负担。尽管在过去几十年中，人们在剖析慢性疼痛的潜在机制方面取得了实质性进展，但这种神经系统疾病的发病率和治疗在临床实践中仍未得到妥善管理。虽然神经损伤、化疗或炎症诱导的背根神经节和脊髓中基因表达的功能调节已被广泛报道与慢性疼痛的发病机制有关，但这些转录谱改变的确切机制仍不清楚。最近的研究表明，表观遗传机制，包括 DNA/RNA 甲基化、组蛋白修饰和环状 RNA 调节，参与了慢性疼痛的发生和发展。在这篇综述中，我们描述了表观遗传机制在慢性疼痛中的作用研究，总结了该领域的最新临床和临床前进展，并提出了进一步研究的潜在方向，以阐明慢性疼痛发病机制的分子机制。
