Characterization of new peptides and physiological amino acids present in cerebrospinal fluid of chronic pain patients

Abstract

Pain is a multidimensional sensation produced by complex neuronal responses. Therapeutics so far developed for management of chronic pain caused by neuropathy and inflammatory diseases are partially effective. Many amino acids and neuropeptides have been suggested to be involved in pain perception and in this work three peptides have been successfully isolated and identified from chronic pain CSF samples by an approach different from proteomics. Evidences for the involvement of one peptide a?? 7B2CT in chronic pain, especially neuropathic pain have been found using mouse pain models and receptor binding assay. These peptides though recently isolated from CSF, their pathophysiological roles have never been investigated. A new simple HPLC method for quantitative analysis of amino acids and some pain related compounds in CSF was developed and quantitative analysis of amino acids in CSF samples collected from different pain patients was performed applying this method. The results provide some interesting insight into the roles of these amino acids and peptides in pain mechanisms.