| First Author | Willemen HLDM | Year | 2018 |
| Journal | PLoS Biol | Volume | 16 |
| Issue | 2 | Pages | e2003452 |
| PubMed ID | 29444090 | Mgi Jnum | J:270133 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6140687 | Doi | 10.1371/journal.pbio.2003452 |
| Citation | Willemen HLDM, et al. (2018) Identification of FAM173B as a protein methyltransferase promoting chronic pain. PLoS Biol 16(2):e2003452 |
| abstractText | 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. |
