Sodium channel Nav1.7 immunoreactivity in painful human dental pulp and burning mouth syndrome

BMC Neuroscience

Research Article

Kiran Beneng¹  Zehra Yilmaz¹  Tara Renton¹  Yiangos Yiangou²  Praveen Anand² 

[1] Oral Surgery Department, Dental Institute, King's College London, Guy's Hospital, Great Maze Pond, London, UK;Peripheral Neuropathy Unit, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, London, UK;

关键词: Sodium Channel;    Trigeminal Neuralgia;    Trigeminal Ganglion;    Dental Pulp;    Orofacial Pain;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2202-11-71

 received in 2009-09-07, accepted in 2010-06-08,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundVoltage gated sodium channels Nav1.7 are involved in nociceptor nerve action potentials and are known to affect pain sensitivity in clinical genetic disorders.Aims and ObjectivesTo study Nav1.7 levels in dental pulpitis pain, an inflammatory condition, and burning mouth syndrome (BMS), considered a neuropathic orofacial pain disorder.MethodsTwo groups of patients were recruited for this study. One group consisted of patients with dental pulpitis pain (n = 5) and controls (n = 12), and the other patients with BMS (n = 7) and controls (n = 10). BMS patients were diagnosed according to the International Association for the Study of Pain criteria; a pain history was collected, including the visual analogue scale (VAS). Immunohistochemistry with visual intensity and computer image analysis were used to evaluate levels of Nav1.7 in dental pulp tissue samples from the dental pulpitis group, and tongue biopsies from the BMS group.ResultsThere was a significantly increased visual intensity score for Nav1.7 in nerve fibres in the painful dental pulp specimens, compared to controls. Image analysis showed a trend for an increase of the Nav1.7 immunoreactive % area in the painful pulp group, but this was not statistically significant. When expressed as a ratio of the neurofilament % area, there was a strong trend for an increase of Nav1.7 in the painful pulp group. Nav1.7 immunoreactive fibres were seen in abundance in the sub-mucosal layer of tongue biopsies, with no significant difference between BMS and controls.ConclusionNav1.7 sodium channel may play a significant role in inflammatory dental pain. Clinical trials with selective Nav1.7 channel blockers should prioritise dental pulp pain rather than BMS.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Beneng et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.