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

ABSTRACT

Introduction

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

Areas covered

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.

Expert opinion

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Chronic pain
• proteomics

Article highlights

• The use of proteomics in chronic pain research is in its infancy.

• Peripheral and central mechanisms have been investigated.

• The identified studies reported proteins that significantly differed in expression between patients and controls.

• Our network analyses showed interactions among most proteins.

• The overlap at the level of single proteins is limited and necessitates a focus on identifying the biological processes.

• Larger proteomic studies with standardised descriptions of the pain cohorts are needed.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants, or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. It was not reported that the pain group had sciatica.

2. See Supplementary Excel file 1 for explanation of abbreviations.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council and County Council of Östergötland (Research-ALF). The sponsors of the study had no role in study design, data collection, data analysis, data interpretation, writing of the report, or the decision to submit for publication. The authors had full access to all the data in the study and had final responsibility for the decision to submit for publication.