Genetic screen for neuropathic pain study in importin alpha3 knock out mice
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ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE137515 | GEO | 2020/08/17
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Introduction: The mechanisms governing synaptonuclear transport, and the transcriptional pathways that are at the core of neuronal disorders are poorly understood. The importin family of nuclear import factors has pivotal roles in such pathways, due to their involvement in intracellular transport from both synapse to soma and cytoplasm to nucleus. Mammals express six different isoforms of importin α, which bind an Importin β to form transport complexes for specific cargoes. Methods: We addressed the roles of importin α isoforms in mammalian CNS by evaluation of a systematic series of importin α knockout mice. A comprehensive battery of behavioral tests was used to investigate spontaneous and novelty-induced locomotion, basal ganglia function, motor coordination, neuromuscular integration, anxiety-related behaviors and memory. Subsequent analyses using acute-brain slice electrophysiology, RNA-seq, bioinformatics, imaging and pharmacology was used in order to delineate the contribution of genes and signaling pathways involved in the identified phenotype and screen for new therapeutic approaches. Results and Discussion: During the course of comprehensive behavioral profiling of importin α mouse mutants, we identified an importin α knockout (KO) mouse with significantly reduced anxiety levels. Electrophysiological recordings in acute hippocampal slices showed a reduced short-term and presynaptic plasticity (paired-pulse facilitation deficit, lower PTP), while LTP was not affected in these mutants. We then performed transcriptional profiling (RNA-seq) from hippocampal extracts of wild type versus mutant animals after exposure to an anxiogenic drug. Computational analysis revealed differences in the expression of genes and the involvement of transcription factors. Drugs that activate LXR or the Sphingosine 1 phosphate receptor have robust anxiolytic effects, while a Sphk1 blocker reverses anxiolysis in the importin α5 knockout mouse. Thus, importin α5 influences anxiety by regulating nuclear import in neurons.
2018-11-22 | GSE106546 | GEO
Project description:Sensitization of spinal nociceptive circuits plays a cardinal role in neuropathic pain. This sensitization depends on new gene expression that is primarily regulated via transcriptional and translational control mechanisms. The relative roles of these mechanisms in regulating gene expression in the clinically relevant chronic phase of neuropathic pain are not well understood. Here, we show that changes in gene expression in the spinal cord during the chronic phase of neuropathic pain are substantially regulated at the translational level. Downregulating spinal translation at the chronic phase alleviated pain hypersensitivity. Cell-type-specific profiling revealed that spinal inhibitory neurons exhibited greater changes in translation after peripheral nerve injury compared to excitatory neurons. Notably, increasing translation selectively in all inhibitory neurons or parvalbumin-positive (PV + ) interneurons, but not excitatory neurons, promoted mechanical pain hypersensitivity. Furthermore, increasing translation in PV + neurons decreased their intrinsic excitability and spiking activity, whereas reducing translation in spinal PV + neurons prevented the nerve injury-induced decrease in excitability. Thus, translational control mechanisms in the spinal cord, primarily in inhibitory neurons, play a critical role in mediating neuropathic pain hypersensitivity.
2024-04-30 | GSE265957 | GEO
Project description:Neuropathic pain is a refractory condition that involves de novo protein synthesis in the nociceptive pathway. The mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) is a master regulator of protein synthesis; however, mechanisms underlying its role in neuropathic pain remain elusive. Using spared nerve injury-induced neuropathic pain model, we found mTOR activation in large-diameter dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons and spinal microglia. However, selective ablation of mTOR in DRG neurons, rather than microglia, alleviated neuropathic pain. Combining transcriptomic profiling, electrophysiological recording and pharmacologic manipulations, we demonstrated that activated mTOR promoted neuropeptide Y (NPY) induction in mechanoreceptors and that NPY acted on Y2 receptors (Y2R) but not Y1R to enhance nociceptor excitability. Peripheral replenishment of NPY reversed pain alleviation upon mTOR removal, whereas Y2R antagonists prevented its function. Our findings reveal an unexpected link between mTOR and NPY in promoting nociceptor sensitization and neuropathic pain, through NPY/Y2R signaling-mediated intra-ganglionic transmission.
2022-09-01 | GSE184014 | GEO
Project description:Neuropathic pain is an apparently spontaneous experience triggered by abnormal physiology of the peripheral or central nervous system, which evolves with time. Neuropathic pain arising from peripheral nerve injury is characterized by a combination of spontaneous pain, hyperalgesia and allodynia. There is no evidence of this type of pain in human infants or rat pups; brachial plexus avulsion, which causes intense neuropathic pain in adults, is not painful when the injury is sustained at birth. Since infants are capable of nociception from before birth and display both acute and chronic inflammatory pain behaviour from an early neonatal age, it appears that the mechanisms underlying neuropathic pain are differentially regulated over a prolonged postnatal period. We used microarrays to detail the global programme of gene expression underlying the differences in nerve injury between along the postnatal development and identified distinct classes of regulated genes during the injury Experiment Overall Design: We have performed a microarray analysis of the rat L4/L5 dorsal root ganglia, 7 days post spared nerve injury, a model of neuropathic pain. Genes that are regulated in adult rats displaying neuropathic behaviour were compared to those regulated in young rats (10 days old) that did not show the same neuropathic behaviour.
2010-01-30 | E-GEOD-15041 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Peripheral nerve injury alters the expression of hundreds of proteins in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Targeting some of these proteins has led to successful treatments for acute pain, but not for sustained postoperative neuropathic pain. The latter may require targeting multiple proteins. Since a single microRNA (miR) can affect the expression of multiple proteins, here, we describe an approach to identify chronic neuropathic pain-relevant miRs. We used two variants of the spared nerve injury (SNI): Sural-SNI and Tibial-SNI and found distinct pain phenotypes between the two. Both models induced strong mechanical allodynia, but only Sural-SNI rats maintained strong mechanical and cold allodynia, as previously reported. In contrast, we found that Tibial-SNI rats recovered from mechanical allodynia and never developed cold allodynia. Since both models involve nerve injury, we increased the probability of identifying differentially regulated miRs that correlated with the quality and magnitude of neuropathic pain and decreased the probability of detecting miRs that are solely involved in neuronal regeneration. We found seven such miRs in L3-L5 DRG. The expression of these miRs increased in Tibial-SNI. These miRs displayed a lower level of expression in Sural-SNI, with four having levels lower than those in sham animals. Bioinformatics analysis of how these miRs could affect the expression of some ion channels supports the view that, following a peripheral nerve injury, the increase of the 7 miRs may contribute to the recovery from neuropathic pain while the decrease of four of them may contribute to the development of chronic neuropathic pain. The approach used resulted in the identification of a small number of potentially neuropathic pain relevant miRs. Additional studies are required to investigate whether manipulating the expression of the identified miRs in primary sensory neurons can prevent or ameliorate chronic neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injuries. To identify the miRs that were differentially dysregulated between Tibial-SNI and Sural-SNI, we first performed 12 microarrays in a limited number of samples (in four individual DRGs per group: Sham, Tibial-SNI and Sural-SNI; two L3-DRG and two L4-DRG). Then, miRs identified as having differential expression were corroborated with real time qRT-PCR in RNA isolated from individual DRGs (L3, L4 and L5) derived from 4 rats per group (not presented here, but in the manuscript).
2014-09-29 | E-GEOD-60033 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Neuropathic pain causes severe suffering and most patients are resilient to current therapies. A core element of neuropathic pain is the loss of inhibitory tone in the spinal cord. Previous studies have shown that foetal GABAergic neuron precursors can provide relief from pain. However, the source of these precursor cells and their multipotent status make them unsuitable for therapeutic use. Here we extend these findings by showing, for the first time, that spinally transplanted, terminally differentiated hiPSC-derived GABAergic (iGABAergic) neurons provide significant, long-term and safe relief from neuropathic pain induced by peripheral nerve injury in mice. Furthermore, iGABAergic Neuron transplants survive long term in the injured spinal cord and show evidence of synaptic integration. Together, this provides the proof in principle for the first viable GABAergic transplants to treat human neuropathic pain patients.
2020-01-23 | GSE115565 | GEO
Project description:Chronic, often intractable pain is caused by neuropathic conditions such as peripheral nerve injury (PNI) and spinal cord injury (SCI). These conditions are associated with alterations in gene and protein expression correlated with functional changes in somatosensory neurons having cell bodies in dorsal root ganglia (DRGs). Most studies of DRG transcriptional alterations have utilized PNI models where axotomy-induced changes important for regeneration may overshadow changes that drive neuropathic pain. Both PNI and SCI produce DRG neuron hyperexcitability linked to pain, but contusive SCI produces little peripheral axotomy or peripheral nerve inflammation. Thus, comparison of transcriptional signatures of DRGs across PNI and SCI models may highlight pain-associated transcriptional alterations that don’t depend on peripheral axotomy and associated effects such as peripheral Wallerian degeneration. Data from our rat thoracic SCI experiments were combined with meta-analysis of whole-DRG RNA-seq datasets from prominent rat PNI models. Striking differences were found between transcriptional responses to PNI and SCI, especially in regeneration-associated genes and long noncoding RNAs. Many transcriptomic changes after SCI were also found after corresponding sham surgery, indicating they were caused by injury to surrounding tissue rather than to the spinal cord itself. Another unexpected finding was of few transcriptomic similarities between any rat neuropathic pain model and the only reported transcriptional analysis of human DRGs linked to neuropathic pain. These findings show that DRGs exhibit complex transcriptional responses to central and peripheral neural and tissue injury. Although few genes in DRG cells show similar changes in gene expression across all these painful conditions, the few widely shared transcriptional alterations promise novel insights into fundamental mechanisms within DRGs that can drive neuropathic pain.
2022-10-20 | GSE202111 | GEO
Project description:Peripheral nerve injury alters the expression of hundreds of proteins in dorsal root ganglia (DRG). Targeting some of these proteins has led to successful treatments for acute pain, but not for sustained postoperative neuropathic pain. The latter may require targeting multiple proteins. Since a single microRNA (miR) can affect the expression of multiple proteins, here, we describe an approach to identify chronic neuropathic pain-relevant miRs. We used two variants of the spared nerve injury (SNI): Sural-SNI and Tibial-SNI and found distinct pain phenotypes between the two. Both models induced strong mechanical allodynia, but only Sural-SNI rats maintained strong mechanical and cold allodynia, as previously reported. In contrast, we found that Tibial-SNI rats recovered from mechanical allodynia and never developed cold allodynia. Since both models involve nerve injury, we increased the probability of identifying differentially regulated miRs that correlated with the quality and magnitude of neuropathic pain and decreased the probability of detecting miRs that are solely involved in neuronal regeneration. We found seven such miRs in L3-L5 DRG. The expression of these miRs increased in Tibial-SNI. These miRs displayed a lower level of expression in Sural-SNI, with four having levels lower than those in sham animals. Bioinformatics analysis of how these miRs could affect the expression of some ion channels supports the view that, following a peripheral nerve injury, the increase of the 7 miRs may contribute to the recovery from neuropathic pain while the decrease of four of them may contribute to the development of chronic neuropathic pain. The approach used resulted in the identification of a small number of potentially neuropathic pain relevant miRs. Additional studies are required to investigate whether manipulating the expression of the identified miRs in primary sensory neurons can prevent or ameliorate chronic neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injuries.
2014-09-29 | GSE60033 | GEO
Project description:Not all patients with nerve injury develop neuropathic pain. The extent of nerve damage and age at the time of injury are two of the few risk factors identified to date. In addition, preclinical studies show that neuropathic pain variance is heritable. To define such factors further, we performed a large-scale gene profiling experiment which plotted global expression changes in the rat dorsal root ganglion in three peripheral neuropathic pain models. This resulted in the discovery that the potassium channel alpha subunit KCNS1, involved in neuronal excitability, is constitutively expressed in sensory neurons and markedly downregulated following nerve injury. KCNS1 was then characterized by an unbiased network analysis as a putative pain gene, a result confirmed by single nucleotide polymorphism association studies in humans. A common amino acid changing allele, the 'valine risk allele', was significantly associated with higher pain scores in five of six independent patient cohorts assayed (total of 1359 subjects). Risk allele prevalence is high, with 18-22% of the population homozygous, and an additional 50% heterozygous. At lower levels of nerve damage (lumbar back pain with disc herniation) association with greater pain outcome in homozygote patients is P = 0.003, increasing to P = 0.0001 for higher levels of nerve injury (limb amputation). The combined P-value for pain association in all six cohorts tested is 1.14 E-08. The risk profile of this marker is additive: two copies confer the most, one intermediate and none the least risk. Relative degrees of enhanced risk vary between cohorts, but for patients with lumbar back pain, they range between 2- and 3-fold. Although work still remains to define the potential role of this protein in the pathogenic process, here we present the KCNS1 allele rs734784 as one of the first prognostic indicators of chronic pain risk. Screening for this allele could help define those individuals prone to a transition to persistent pain, and thus requiring therapeutic strategies or lifestyle changes that minimize nerve injury. Microarrays were run on mRNA extracted from adult rat L4 and L5 DRGs cells after 3,7,21,40 hours after three different sciatic nerve lesions [Spared Nerve Injury (SNI); Chronic Constriction Injury (CCI); Spinal Nerve Ligation (Ch) with Sham controls (SH)].
2011-07-14 | E-GEOD-30691 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:We examine the role of Klf6 in oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and determine that Klf6 acts in part through direct regulation of gp130 signaling and nuclear import via importin-α5 (Impα5), a key controller of nuclear trafficking. Examination of Klf6 DNA binding in two different stages of differentiation
2016-04-01 | E-GEOD-79243 | biostudies-arrayexpress