Identification of FAM173B as a protein methyltransferase promoting chronic pain

Chronic pain is a debilitating problem, and insights in the neurobiology of chronic pain are needed for the development of novel pain therapies. A genome-wide association study implicated the 5p15.2 region in chronic widespread pain. This region includes the coding region for FAM173B, a functionally uncharacterized protein. We demonstrate here that FAM173B is a mitochondrial lysine methyltransferase that promotes chronic pain. Knockdown and sensory neuron overexpression strategies showed that FAM173B is involved in persistent inflammatory and neuropathic pain via a pathway dependent on its methyltransferase activity. FAM173B methyltransferase activity in sensory neurons hyperpolarized mitochondria and promoted macrophage/microglia activation through a reactive oxygen species–dependent pathway. In summary, we uncover a role for methyltransferase activity of FAM173B in the neurobiology of pain. These results also highlight FAM173B methyltransferase activity as a potential therapeutic target to treat debilitating chronic pain conditions.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  PLoS Biology

• Publication date

  2018-02-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003452PMID 29444090PMCID 5828452
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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