Inhibition of Nonsense-Mediated Decay in Dorsal Root Ganglion Neurons

Given the unique morphology of neurons with extensive projections, such as nociceptors, mRNA regulation is crucial for their physiological processes and function. Tools for manipulating post-transcriptional and translational regulatory pathways in nociceptors are essential to study the role of these pathways in pain. Nonsense-mediated decay (NMD) is a key quality-control and regulatory mechanism in which, canonically, mRNA with premature termination codons are targeted and degraded to protect the cell against aberrant truncated proteins. Inhibition of NMD has been shown to lead to nociceptive sensitization in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) sensory neurons, suggesting the relevance of NMD to pain chronification. Here we describe a method to inhibit NMD in cultured murine DRG neurons and analyze NMD-sensitive transcripts.