Epigenomic landscape of the human dorsal root ganglion: sex differences and transcriptional regulation of nociceptive genes.
Úrzula Franco-EnzástigaNikhil N InturiKeerthana NatarajanJuliet M MwirigiKhadija MazharJohannes C M SchlachetzkiMark SchumacherTheodore John PricePublished in: bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology (2024)
Women more frequently suffer from chronic pain than men. Animal and human studies demonstrate that underlying molecular mechanisms causing chronic pain differ by sex. We hypothesized that epigenomic differences in the hDRG may underlie both the higher propensity for women to develop chronic pain disorders and mechanistic sex differences in chronic pain. As a first test of this idea, we mapped the open chromatin accessibility landscape of the hDRG in female and male organ donor-recovered tissues. Our findings highlight clear baseline sex differences in the hDRG that provide a mechanistic explanation for how injury and/or inflammation can drive different transcriptional programs that ultimately change the excitability of DRG neurons, creating signals that cause pain.
Keyphrases
- chronic pain
- endothelial cells
- pain management
- neuropathic pain
- gene expression
- polycystic ovary syndrome
- spinal cord
- transcription factor
- induced pluripotent stem cells
- genome wide
- oxidative stress
- pregnancy outcomes
- public health
- metabolic syndrome
- minimally invasive
- dna methylation
- middle aged
- cervical cancer screening
- skeletal muscle
- heat shock protein
- insulin resistance
- breast cancer risk
- working memory