转阿片肽基因治疗慢性疼痛的研究现状和展望

慢性疼痛发生过程中通常伴随有神经系统的复杂改变。因此，慢性疼痛应被视为神经系统的一种病理状态。在探索治疗慢性疼痛的新途径时，基因方案显示出了巨大的潜力。基因治疗是将镇痛性的蛋白质导入与疼痛相关联的结构中，并使其在靶细胞附近进行持久表达。近来，这些技术在许多慢性疼痛的动物模型上进行了成功实验，显示出某些基因特别是前阿片肽如阿片促黑皮质素原或脑啡肽原A在脊髓水平上的转运，以及由此所引起的编码产物的大量产生，能够有效减弱炎症性和神经源性的疼痛．

The research status quo and prospect of trans-opioid peptides gene in chronic pain therapy

Chronic pain is frequently associated with profound alterations of neuronal systems involved in pain processing and should be considered as a real disease state of the nervous system. In the search for new therapeutic strategies, the gene-based approaches are of potential interest as they offer the possibility to introduce a therapeutic protein into some relevant structures and to drive its continuous production in the near vicinity of targeted cells. Recently, these techniques have been experimented in several animal models of chronic pain, the results show that transfer some genes at the spinal level, in particular those of opioid precursors proopiomelanocortin or proenkephalin A, leading to the overproduction of products that they encode, and attenuating persistent pain of both inflammatory and neuropathic origin.