nocistatin and Neuralgia

While acute pain has a fundamental role to operate a protective system, chronic pain associated with inflammation and nerve injury often outlasts its biological usefulness. Therefore, there has recently been great interest in the neurochemical mechanisms of hyperalgesia to noxious stimuli and tactile pain (allodynia) to innocuous stimuli with a hope to relieve persistent, intractable pain. Over several decades non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioids have been employed for clinical management of pain. The introduction of molecular biology to pain research has enabled us to describe the mechanism of pain at the molecular level and to develop analgesics with selectivity for targets and with less adverse effects. This review focuses on current knowledge concerning mechanisms and pathways for pain induced by prostaglandins and their interactions with novel neuropeptides nociceptin/orphanin FQ and nocistatin derived from the same opioid precursor protein.

Topics: Analgesics; Animals; Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal; Arachidonic Acids; Brain; Cattle; Cyclooxygenase 1; Cyclooxygenase Inhibitors; Drug Synergism; Glutamic Acid; Humans; Hyperalgesia; Inflammation; Isoenzymes; Membrane Proteins; Mice; Mice, Knockout; Models, Animal; Models, Biological; Neuralgia; Neuronal Plasticity; Nitric Oxide; Nociceptin; Nociceptors; Opioid Peptides; Pain; Peripheral Nerves; Prostaglandin-Endoperoxide Synthases; Prostaglandins; Protein Precursors; Rats; Spinal Cord; Thromboxane-A Synthase

Tissue or nerve injury can dramatically alter the transmission of sensory stimuli by spinal cord neurons, so that a light touch produces pain. The discovery that peptide products of prepronociceptin processing either facilitate or inhibit these mechanisms suggests novel approaches to treating these conditions.

Topics: Analgesics, Opioid; Animals; Humans; Isoenzymes; Neuralgia; Nociceptin Receptor; Opioid Peptides; Pain Measurement; Protein Kinase C; Receptors, Opioid