Our previous animal studies and several human clinical trials have shown that granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (GCSF) can attenuate neuropathic pain through various mechanisms. GCSF itself is also a multipotent cytokine that can modulate microribonucleic acid (microRNA) expression profiles in vitro. In this study, we used the NanoString nCounter analysis system to screen the expression of different rodent microRNAs at early stage after nerve injury and studied the expression of related cytokines/chemokines in the dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) of rats that underwent chronic constriction injury (CCI) to explore the underlying mechanisms of the analgesic effects of GCSF. We found that microRNA-122 expression was downregulated by CCI; in contrast, GCSF treatment significantly upregulated microRNA-122 expression in the DRGs of CCI rats on the 1st day after nerve injury. We further studied the expression of different cytokines/chemokines (IL-1β, IL-6, and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1)) that were modulated by microRNA-122. MCP-1 has been reported to participate in neuropathic pain development, and its expression on the DRGs of vehicle-treated CCI rats was significantly higher than that on the DRGs of sham-operated rats; in contrast, GCSF-treated rats exhibited significantly lower MCP-1 expression in the DRG than vehicle-treated rats on the 7th day after nerve injury. An early GCSF treatment can suppress MCP-1 expressions, through upregulating microRNA-122 expressions in the DRGs of CCI rats at an earlier stage, thus indirectly attenuating neuropathic pain development.
Several studies have shown that the mu opioid receptor (MOR) located in the peripheral nerves can be activated after nerve injury and that it attenuates peripheral nociceptive signals to the spinal dorsal horn. Various cytokines and phosphorylated-p38 (p-p38) activation in the dorsal horn also play an important role in neuropathic pain development. Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (GCSF) is a growth factor that can stimulate granulocyte formation and has been shown to exert an analgesic effect on neuropathic pain through recruiting opioid-containing leukocytes to the injured nerve. However, the underlying mechanisms are not well understood. Herein, the results of behavior tests in addition to MOR levels in the injured sciatic nerve and the levels of p-p38 and various cytokines in the spinal dorsal horn were studied in vehicle-treated or GCSF-treated chronic constriction injured (CCI) rats at different time points (i.e., 1, 3, and 7 days, respectively) after nerve injury. The results showed that a single early systemic GCSF treatment after nerve injury can up-regulate MORs in the injured nerve, which can decrease peripheral nociceptive signals. Thereafter, those changes suppress the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-6 but enhance the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-4, followed by decreases in p-p38 in the dorsal horn, and thus further attenuate neuropathic pain.
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