INTERESTING ADVANCE IN STUDY OF CHRONIC PAIN FROM ISRAEL….THE GENE
http://israel21c.org/201008238246/health/the-gene-at-the-heart-of-pain
The gene at the heart of pain
By ISRAEL21c Staff
August 23, 2010
A gene affecting chronic pain caused by nerve injury has been identified by
Israeli and international researchers, opening the way for new treatment
approaches.
Understanding the genetics of pain: Prof. Marshall Devor and Prof. Ariel Darvasi
of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
A gene associated with susceptibility to chronic pain caused by nerve injury in
humans has been identified by a team of Israeli and international researchers,
offering hope of new treatments for sufferers everywhere.
Chronic pain affects about 20 percent of adults worldwide, and can range from
persistent headaches, to back pain, the pain of arthritis, and even psychogenic
pain, where doctors can’t find the cause for a constant pain.
While it is recognized that some people are more susceptible than others to
chronic pain, no one knows why. Given the same injury and the same operation,
people will suffer variable degrees of pain, even under nearly identical
circumstances.
Now researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), the University of
Toronto in Canada, Sanofi-Aventis in Germany and the Karolinska Institute Center
for Oral Biology in Sweden, believe they may have found the answer in genetics.
“The immediate significance is the mere awareness that differences in pain
perception may have a genetic predisposition,” says Prof. Ariel Darvasi of the
Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at the Hebrew University. “Our
discovery may provide insights for treating chronic pain through previously
unthought-of mechanisms.”
The gene at the heart of your pain perception
In a report published late last week in Genome Research, Darvasi and colleagues
identified a region of mouse chromosome 15 that likely contained a genetic
variant or variants contributing to pain. However, this region contains many
genes, and the responsible variant remained unknown.
Darvasi and his team, which includes Prof. Marshall Devor of the Hebrew
University, undertook two fine-mapping approaches to narrow down the chromosomal
locus to an interval of 155 genes.
By applying bioinformatics approaches and whole genome microarray analysis, they
were able to confidently identify a single gene, Cacgn2, as the likely
candidate. In mouse experiments, the researchers were able to confirm that
Cacfn2 has a functional role in pain.
To find out whether the human version of the gene also plays a part in chronic
pain, the scientists then analyzed a group of breast cancer patients who
experienced chronic pain more than six months after they had undergone removal
or partial removal of a breast. The researchers found that genetic variants of
Cacng2 were significantly associated with this chronic pain.
While cautioning that this association will need further analysis, the
researchers say that the result suggests that this gene is an important factor
in experiencing pain.
The work was supported by the Israel Science Foundation, the Hebrew University
Center for Research on Pain, the Canada Research Chair Program and the European
Community’s 6th Framework Program.
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