Bilateral elevation of cytokines in both cervical and lumbar dorsal root ganglia in two neuropatic pain models

• Authors: DUBOVÝ Petr; KLUSÁKOVÁ Ilona; HRADILOVÁ SVÍŽENSKÁ Ivana; BRÁZDA Václav; JANČÁLEK Radim
• Year of publication: 2010
• MU Faculty or unit: Faculty of Medicine
• Description: Many experimental studies have documented important role of proinflammatory cytokines during induction and maintenance of neuropathic pain. We investigated levels of IL-1b, TNFa, IL-6 and IL-10 in both ipsilateral and contralateral lumbar (L4-5) and cervical (C7-8) dorsal root ganglia (DRG) following unilateral chronic constriction injury of the sciatic nerve (CCI) and L4-L5 spinal nerve ligature (SNL) as models of neuropathic pain. Although mechanoallodynia and thermal hyperalgesia were detected in the ipsilateral hind paws, levels of cytokine proteins were enhanced bilaterally in both cervical and lumbar DRG following CCI and SNL. The bilateral changes of cytokine proteins were confirmed by Western blot. An increased level of cytokine proteins were also found in sham-operated animals at early periods of survival. Our results revealed that increased cytokine proteins in DRG per se are not completely involved in neuropathic pain induction and maintenance, but they may take part in a propagation of neuroinflammation alongside the neuroaxis over compartments of the nervous system not directly linked with injured peripheral nerve.

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