Pain-in-a-Dish Expands the Nav1.7 Research Menu
Two new studies use sensory neurons derived from induced pluripotent stem cells to examine the pain mechanisms of inherited erythromelalgia and congenital insensitivity to pain
This article was originally published on the Pain Research Forum on 1 Apr 2019
by Neil Andrews
When it comes to the experimental tools that researchers use to understand pain at the cellular and molecular level, dorsal root ganglion neurons from animals—and more recently from human donors—have traditionally received most of the fanfare. But there is a new game in town. Pain researchers are now turning to induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), and the sensory neurons that can be derived from them (iPSC-SNs), to understand painful conditions and the neurobiological mechanisms that drive them. Two new studies now show the value of this “pain-in-a-dish” approach, particularly when combined with more traditional strategies, in patients with rare pain disorders caused by mutations in the sodium channel Nav1.7…
