Potential target against neuropathic pain identified

London, Jan 23 (ANI): Scientists have discovered a major clue to a type of chronic pain called neuropathic pain, which affects millions of people worldwide.

It is triggered by nerve damage but how this pain persists has been a mystery, and current treatments are largely ineffective.

Now, a team led by scientists from The Scripps Research Institute, using a new approach known as metabolomics, has found that dimethylsphingosine (DMS), a small-molecule byproduct of cellular membranes in the nervous system, may be behind it.

In their new study, the scientists found that DMS is produced at abnormally high levels in the spinal cords of rats with neuropathic pain and appears to cause pain when injected.

The findings suggest inhibiting this molecule may be a fruitful target for drug development.

"We think that this is a big step forward in understanding and treating neuropathic pain, and also a solid demonstration of the power of metabolomics," said Gary J. Patti, a research associate at Scripps Research during the study, and now an assistant professor of genetics, chemistry, and medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

"These are the molecules that are actually being transformed during cellular activity, and tracking them provides more direct information on what's happening at a biochemical level," Patti said.

The scientists began with a standard model of neuropathic pain in lab rats.

Patti and their colleagues sampled segments of a previously injured tibial leg nerve triggering neuropathic pain, as well as the rats' blood plasma and tissue from the rats' spinal cords. The scientists then determined the levels of metabolites in these tissues, and compared them to levels from control animals.

Unexpectedly, the scientists found that nearly all the major abnormalities in metabolite levels were present not in the injured leg nerve fiber, nor in blood plasma, but in tissue from the "dorsal horn" region of the spinal cord which normally receives signals from the tibial nerve and relays them to the brain.

"After the nerve is damaged, it degrades and rebuilds itself at the site of the injury, but remodeling also occurs, possibly over a longer period, at the terminus of the nerve where it connects to dorsal horn neurons," Patti said.

Next, the researchers set up a test to see which of the abnormally altered metabolites in dorsal horn tissue could evoke signs of pain signalling in cultures of rat spinal cord tissue.

One metabolite stood out-a small molecule that didn't appear in any of the metabolome databases. Patti eventually determined that the molecule was DMS, an apparent byproduct of cellular reactions involving sphingomyelin, a major building block for the insulating sheaths of nerve fibers.

"This is the first characterization and quantitation of DMS as a naturally occurring compound," Patti noted.

When the scientists injected it into healthy rats, at a dose similar to that found in the nerve-injured rats, it induced pain.

DMS seems to cause pain at least in part by stimulating the release of pro-inflammatory molecules from neuron-supporting cells called astrocytes.

Patti and their colleagues are now trying to find out more about DMS's pain-inducing mechanisms-and are testing inhibitors of DMS production that may prove to be effective treatments or preventives of neuropathic pain.

The study appeared online in the journal Nature Chemical Biology on January 22, 2012. (ANI)