In Vivo application of RNAi to study pain

Chronic pain is associated with several disease conditions. The inadequacy of current analgesics to treat chronic pain is the result of a lack of understanding of the mechanisms that mediate pain. RNA interference has emerged in recent years as a new way to evaluate the roles of molecules involved in the pain response. Selective knockout of proteins has proven to be a powerful technique for target validation, but has been limited as a potential therapeutic due to short-lived responses induced by RNAi. The short responses of RNAi illustrate the need for better delivery techniques, which is being addressed by current work to induce RNAi through the cell's natural mechanisms. In order to gain a better understanding of chronic pain, it will be necessary to evaluate the pain molecules that are expressed as part of an injury induced pain response, which can be modeled by contusion spinal cord injury. RNAi will prove to be an important technique in this work. The present minireview will summarize the work that has been done using RNAi in vivo to study pain and discuss future directions for the use of RNAi to study chronic pain.