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Select steroid hormone glucuronide metabolites can cause toll-like receptor 4 activation and enhanced pain.

ABSTRACT: We have recently shown that several classes of glucuronide metabolites, including the morphine metabolite morphine-3-glucuronide and the ethanol metabolite ethyl glucuronide, cause toll like receptor 4 (TLR4)-dependent signaling in vitro and enhanced pain in vivo. Steroid hormones, including estrogens and corticosterone, are also metabolized through glucuronidation. Here we demonstrate that in silico docking predicts that corticosterone, corticosterone-21-glucuronide, estradiol, estradiol-3-glucuronide and estradiol-17-glucuronide all dock with the MD-2 component of the TLR4 receptor complex. In addition to each docking with MD-2, the docking of each was altered by pre-docking with (+)-naloxone, a TLR4 signaling inhibitor. As agonist versus antagonist activity cannot be determined from these in silico interactions, an in vitro study was undertaken to clarify which of these compounds can act in an agonist fashion. Studies using a cell line transfected with TLR4, necessary co-signaling molecules, and a reporter gene revealed that only estradiol-3-glucuronide and estradiol-17-glucuronide increased reporter gene product, indicative of TLR4 agonism. Finally, in in vivo studies, each of the 5 drugs was injected intrathecally at equimolar doses. In keeping with the in vitro results, only estradiol-3-glucuronide and estradiol-17-glucuronide caused enhanced pain. For both compounds, pain enhancement was blocked by the TLR4 antagonist lipopolysaccharide from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, evidence for the involvement in TLR4 in the resultant pain enhancement. These findings have implications for several chronic pain conditions, including migraine and temporomandibular joint disorder, in which pain episodes are more likely in cycling females when estradiol is decreasing and estradiol metabolites are at their highest.

SUBMITTER: Lewis SS

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4275344 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Select steroid hormone glucuronide metabolites can cause toll-like receptor 4 activation and enhanced pain.

Lewis Susannah S SS Hutchinson Mark R MR Frick Morin M MM Zhang Yingning Y Maier Steven F SF Sammakia Tarek T Rice Kenner C KC Watkins Linda R LR

Brain, behavior, and immunity 20140916

We have recently shown that several classes of glucuronide metabolites, including the morphine metabolite morphine-3-glucuronide and the ethanol metabolite ethyl glucuronide, cause toll like receptor 4 (TLR4)-dependent signaling in vitro and enhanced pain in vivo. Steroid hormones, including estrogens and corticosterone, are also metabolized through glucuronidation. Here we demonstrate that in silico docking predicts that corticosterone, corticosterone-21-glucuronide, estradiol, estradiol-3-gluc ...[more]

PMID: 25218902

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Project description:Morphine-3-glucoronide (M3G) is a major morphine metabolite detected in cerebrospinal fluid of humans receiving systemic morphine. M3G has little-to-no affinity for opioid receptors and induces pain by unknown mechanisms. The pain-enhancing effects of M3G have been proposed to significantly and progressively oppose morphine analgesia as metabolism ensues. We have recently documented that morphine activates toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), beyond its classical actions on mu-opioid receptors. This suggests that M3G may similarly activate TLR4. This activation could provide a novel mechanism for M3G-mediated pain enhancement, as (a) TLR4 is predominantly expressed by microglia in spinal cord and (b) TLR4 activation releases pain-enhancing substances, including interleukin-1 (IL-1). We present in vitro evidence that M3G activates TLR4, an effect blocked by TLR4 inhibitors, and that M3G activates microglia to produce IL-1. In vivo, intrathecal M3G (0.75 microg) induced potent allodynia and hyperalgesia, blocked or reversed by interleukin-1 receptor antagonist, minocycline (microglial inhibitor), and (+)-and (-)-naloxone. This latter study extends our prior demonstrations that TLR4 signaling is inhibited by naloxone nonstereoselectively. These results with (+)-and (-)-naloxone also demonstrate that the effects cannot be accounted for by actions at classical, stereoselective opioid receptors. Hyperalgesia (allodynia was not tested) and in vitro M3G-induced TLR4 signaling were both blocked by 17-DMAG, an inhibitor of heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) that can contribute to TLR4 signaling. Providing further evidence of proinflammatory activation, M3G upregulated TLR4 and CD11b (microglial/macrophage activation marker) mRNAs in dorsal spinal cord as well as IL-1 protein in the lumbosacral cerebrospinal fluid. Finally, in silico and in vivo data support that the glucuronic acid moiety is capable of inducing TLR4/MD-2 activation and enhanced pain. These data provide the first evidence for a TLR4 and IL-1 mediated component to M3G-induced effects, likely of at least microglial origin.

Project description:Provoked vestibulodynia (PVD) is a chronic vulvar pain disorder characterized by hypersensitivity and severe pain with pressure localized to the vulvar vestibule. Knowledge regarding pathophysiological mechanisms contributing to the etiology and production of symptoms in PVD remains incomplete but is considered multifactorial. Using a cross-sectional observational study design, data from untargeted metabolomic profiling of vaginal fluid and plasma in women with PVD and healthy women was combined with pain testing and brain imaging in women with PVD to test the hypotheses that women with PVD compared to healthy women show differences in vaginal and plasma metabolites involved in steroid hormone biosynthesis. Steroid hormone metabolites showing group differences were correlated with vulvar vestibular pain and vaginal muscle tenderness and functional connectivity of brain regions involved in pain processing in women with PVD to provide insight into the functional mechanisms linked to the identified alterations. Sensitivity analyses were also performed to determine the impact of hormonal contraceptive use on the study findings. Women with PVD compared to healthy controls had significant reductions primarily in vaginal fluid concentrations of androgenic, pregnenolone and progestin metabolites involved in steroidogenesis, suggesting localized rather than systemic effects in vagina and vulvar vestibule. The observed reductions in androgenic metabolite levels showed large effect size associations with increased vulvar vestibular pain and vulvar muscle tenderness and decreases in androgenic and progestin metabolites were associated with decreased connectivity strength in primary sensorimotor cortices. Women with PVD showed symptom-associated reductions in vaginal fluid concentrations of metabolites involved in the biosynthesis of steroid hormones previously shown to affect the integrity of vulvar and vaginal tissue and nociceptive processing. Deficiency of certain steroids may be an important mechanism contributing to the pathophysiology of symptoms in PVD may provide potential diagnostic markers that could lead to new targets for therapeutic intervention.

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Select steroid hormone glucuronide metabolites can cause toll-like receptor 4 activation and enhanced pain.

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Select steroid hormone glucuronide metabolites can cause toll-like receptor 4 activation and enhanced pain.

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