Pain gene found

Tuesday May 26th, 2015

Researchers have identified a gene that plays a crucial role in pain, it has been announced.

The gene is essential to the production of nerve cells that sense pain, according to researchers from Cambridge University, UK.

The researchers say the findings could help develop new methods of pain relief.

They come from a study of 11 families, found throughout Europe and Asia, who are affected by an inherited condition that limits their ability to feel pain.

The study found affected people lacked pain-sensing neurons - and that the problem was caused by variants of a gene PRDM12.

The findings have been reported in Nature Genetics.

Researcher Professor Geoff Woods said: "The ability to sense pain is essential to our self-preservation, yet we understand far more about excessive pain than we do about lack of pain perception.

"Both are equally important to the development of new pain treatments - if we know the mechanisms that underlie pain sensation, we can then potentially control and reduce unnecessary pain."

Fellow researcher Dr Ya-Chun Chen said: "We are very hopeful that this new gene could be an excellent candidate for drug development, particularly given recent successes with drugs targeting chromatin regulators in human disease."

Chen, Y-C et al. Transcriptional regulator PRDM12 is essential for human pain perception. Nature Genetics 25 May 2015 [abstract]

Tags: Genetics | Pain Relief | UK News

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