Local intramuscular injection of a plasmid encoding human proenkepahlin attenuates incision pain in rats

•Surgical incision resulted in mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia in rats.•Local intramuscular injection of pVAX1-PENK attenuated nocifensive behaviors.•Analgesic effect of pVAX1-PENK was blocked by methylnaltrexone. We investigated the antinociceptive effect of local intramuscular inject...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience letters 2016-10, Vol.632, p.157-162
Main Authors: Hu, Chunsheng, Cai, Zhenzhen, Lu, Yuxin, Cheng, Xiaochen, Wu, Zuze, Zhang, Qinglin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Enkephalins - therapeutic use
Gene therapy
Genetic Therapy
Incision
Injections, Intramuscular
Male
Pain - drug therapy
Pain Management - methods
Pain Threshold - drug effects
Plasmid
Plasmids
Postoperative pain
Proenkephalin
Protein Precursors - therapeutic use
Rats
Rats, Sprague-Dawley
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Summary:•Surgical incision resulted in mechanical allodynia and thermal hyperalgesia in rats.•Local intramuscular injection of pVAX1-PENK attenuated nocifensive behaviors.•Analgesic effect of pVAX1-PENK was blocked by methylnaltrexone. We investigated the antinociceptive effect of local intramuscular injection of a plasmid encoding human proenkephalin (pVAX1-hPPE) on postoperative pain in rats. Male Sprague-Dawley rats with incision-induced pain were intramuscularly injected into injured plantaris muscle with empty vector (pVAX1) or pVAX1-hPPE, respectively. Paw mechanical threshold and thermal latency in the 200μg pVAX1-hPPE treated rats were significantly higher at 6h and on 1day, and lasted until day 7 after intramuscular administration, respectively. The analgesic effects were reversed by methylnaltrexone, suggesting that the antinociceptive effect of pVAX1-hPPE was mediated through peripheral opioid receptor pathway. In contrast, incisional or pVAX1-treated rats did not significantly affect pain thresholds. These results demonstrated that single intramuscular injection of pVAX1-hPPE attenuated incision-induced pain in rats, and it is worthy of further study as a potential gene therapy for postoperative pain.
ISSN:0304-3940
1872-7972
DOI:10.1016/j.neulet.2016.08.058