Whole blood transcriptomic profiles can differentiate vulnerability to chronic low back pain
Author
Dorsey, Susan G.Lassiter, Cameron B.
Zhu, Shijun
Huot-Creasy, Heather
McCracken, Carrie
Mahurkar, Anup
Shetty, Amol C.
Colloca, Luana
Date
2019-05-01Journal
PLoS ONEPublisher
Public Library of ScienceType
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The mechanisms underlying the transition from acute to chronic pain remain unclear. Here, we sought to characterize the transcriptome associated with chronic low back pain as well as the transcriptome of the transition from acute to chronic low back pain. For the analysis, we compared the whole blood transcriptome of: (a) patients at the onset of low back pain who no longer had pain within 6 weeks after onset (acute) with patients who developed chronic low back pain at 6 months (chronic T5); and, (b) patients at the onset of low back pain (chronic T1) who developed chronic pain at 6 months with healthy pain-free (normal) controls. The majority of differentially expressed genes were protein coding. We illustrate a unique chronic low back pain transcriptome characterized by significant enrichment for known pain genes, extracellular matrix genes, and genes from the extended major histocompatibility complex (MHC) genomic locus. The transcriptome of the transition from acute to chronic low back pain was characterized by significant upregulation of antigen presentation pathway (MHC class I and II) genes and downregulation of mitochondrial genes associated with oxidative phosphorylation, suggesting a unique genomic signature of vulnerability to low back pain chronicity. This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.Identifier to cite or link to this item
https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85065917162&origin=inward; http://hdl.handle.net/10713/10136ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1371/journal.pone.0216539