Gene therapy for pain: Introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Gene therapy was first proposed as an approach to the treatment of recessive inherited disease, in which addition of a correct copy of the mutant gene would restore normal function. Although heuristically attractive, such applications of gene therapy have proven to be a high bar and with few exceptions the focus of gene therapy has moved to approaches designed to ameliorate acquired diseases processes. Chronic pain is an example of a disease process affecting a large proportion of the population for which effective long-term treatments have remained elusive. Recent studies of the mechanisms that underlie the development of chronic pain have created a base of physiological and genetic information that identify multiple points of intervention to treat chronic pain. On the basis of these insights, gene therapy may be used to produce products that block pain transmission or reverse the chronic pain state. In the review chapters provided in this special issue, the most current methods and strategies for treatment of chronic pain are described, which support the development of gene therapy as a potentially practical approach suitable for intervening in the treatment of intractable pain.