Proteomic studies of common chronic pain conditions - a systematic review and associated network analyses

The lack of biomarkers indicating involved nociceptive and/or pain mechanisms makes diagnostic procedures problematic. Clinical pain research has begun to use proteomics.

This systematic review covers proteomic studies of chronic pain cohorts and in relation to clinical variables. Searches in three databases identified 96 studies from PubMed, 161 from Scopus and 155 from Web of Science database. Finally, 27 relevant articles were included. Network analyses based on the identified proteins were performed.

Small pain cohorts were investigated and the number of studies per diagnosis and tissue is small. The use of proteomics in chronic pain research is exploratory and larger proteomic studies are needed. It will be necessary to standardize the descriptions of the pain cohorts investigated. There is a need to identify the mechanisms underlying the whole clinical presentation of specific chronic pain conditions. Multivariate methods capable of handling and identifying intercorrelated protein patterns must be applied. Rather than focusing on a few proteins, future studies should use network analyses to investigate interactions and biological processes. Proteomics in combination with bioinformatics have a huge potential to identify previously unknown panels of proteins involved in chronic pain and relevant when devising new pain control strategies.