Abstract
Pain is a signal of harmful stimuli generated by the nociceptive system through the activation of receptors or channels present on the surface of the nociceptors. For example, the acid-sensing ion channels (ASICs) are activated by minor pH variations related to many different disorders. Drugs that cease the stimulus (and pain) antagonize this process. The treatment of pain is a serious public health issue and because of that, there has been a huge effort to develop new antinociceptive drugs. The main objective of this article was to develop a screening test bioinspired by ASIC channels to accelerate the development of new antinociceptive drugs and reduce the number of experiments conducted in animals. For that, a micellar dispersion of polystyrene-b-poly (acrylic acid) (PS-b-PAA) was tested encapsulating p-nitrophenyl butyrate (p-NFB) in the presence of lipase isolated from Pseudomonas fluorescens. When the p-NFB is released, the lipase hydrolyses it to the corresponding phenol, which can be detected in a clear analytical response. The system was pH-responsive between pH 7.4 and 7.0, and the signal was suppressed by ibuprofen as expected for an ASICs bioinspired system. The developed system seems to be effective for screening new drugs in the physiological pH range, proved to be stable, with associated low cost, and is easy to use.
Published Version
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