Enterochromaffin Cells: Sentinels to Gut Microbiota in Hyperalgesia?

Xiaolin Xu,Hui Xu,Rongmin Chen,Gaofeng Zhan,Danning Wang,Xi Tan

doi:10.3389/fcimb.2021.760076

Abstract

In recent years, increasing studies have been conducted on the mechanism of gut microbiota in neuropsychiatric diseases and non-neuropsychiatric diseases. The academic community has also recognized the existence of the microbiota-gut-brain axis. Chronic pain has always been an urgent difficulty for human beings, which often causes anxiety, depression, and other mental symptoms, seriously affecting people’s quality of life. Hyperalgesia is one of the main adverse reactions of chronic pain. The mechanism of gut microbiota in hyperalgesia has been extensively studied, providing a new target for pain treatment. Enterochromaffin cells, as the chief sentinel for sensing gut microbiota and its metabolites, can play an important role in the interaction between the gut microbiota and hyperalgesia through paracrine or neural pathways. Therefore, this systematic review describes the role of gut microbiota in the pathological mechanism of hyperalgesia, learns about the role of enterochromaffin cell receptors and secretions in hyperalgesia, and provides a new strategy for pain treatment by targeting enterochromaffin cells through restoring disturbed gut microbiota or supplementing probiotics.

Highlights

Hyperalgesia refers to a decreased pain threshold and an increased response to harmful stimuli, which seriously affects patients’ health and quality of life (Nugraha et al, 2019)
The genome-wide association study of blood samples from breast cancer patients showed that the occurrence of pain after adjuvant radiotherapy was significantly associated with the activity of olfactory receptor (Olfr) genes (OR52N1, OR4C12, OR4A47) (Lee et al, 2019)
Acetic acid and propionic acid can act on the Olfr OR51E2 on airway smooth muscle cells to slow down the remodeling of cytoskeleton and the proliferation of airway smooth muscle cells, becoming specific receptors targeting the intestine-lung axis to treat asthma (Aisenberg et al, 2016)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Hyperalgesia refers to a decreased pain threshold and an increased response to harmful stimuli, which seriously affects patients’ health and quality of life (Nugraha et al, 2019). Many studies have proved that gut microbiota is involved in the peripheral regulation mechanism of chronic pain, and it is confined to visceral pain and hyperalgesia induced by neuropathic and metabolic diseases (Pellegrini et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2019). The search keyword string included “hyperalgesia OR chronic pain” AND “gut microbiota OR intestinal flora.” To this end, 15 related studies were enrolled. Some studies have concluded that the interference of antibiotic administration leads to the imbalance of the gut microbiota in mice, which can induce mechanical tenderness and spontaneous pain, accompanied by anxiety, depression-like behaviors, and spatial memory impairment (Aguilera et al, 2015; Yang et al, 2019).

22 IBS children and 22 healthy children

Findings

CONCLUSION