• Luiz F Ferrari, Oliver Bogen, Carissa Chu, and Jon D Levine.
• Division of Neuroscience, Departments of Medicine and Oral Surgery, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
• J Pain. 2013 Jul 1;14(7):731-8.

UnlabelledChronic pain is extremely difficult to manage, in part due to lack of progress in reversing the underlying pathophysiology. Since translation of messenger ribonucleic acids (mRNAs) in the peripheral terminal of the nociceptor plays a role in the transition from acute to chronic pain, we tested the hypothesis that transient inhibition of translation in the peripheral terminal of the nociceptor could reverse hyperalgesic priming, a model of transition from acute to chronic pain. We report that injection of translation inhibitors rapamycin and cordycepin, which inhibit translation by different mechanisms, at the peripheral terminal of the primed nociceptor produces reversal of priming in the rat that outlasted the duration of action of these drugs to prevent the development of priming. These data support the suggestion that interruption of translation in the nociceptor can reverse a preclinical model of at least 1 form of chronic pain.PerspectiveThis study provides evidence that ongoing protein translation in the sensory neuron terminals is involved in pain chronification, and local treatment that transiently interrupts this translation may be a useful therapy to chronic pain.Copyright © 2013 American Pain Society. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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