Repetitive Treatment with Diluted Bee Venom Attenuates the Induction of Below-Level Neuropathic Pain Behaviors in a Rat Spinal Cord Injury Model.

Suk-Yun Kang,Jang-Hern Lee,Jung-Wan Choi,Yeonhee Ryu,Dae-Hyun Roh

doi:10.3390/toxins7072571

Suk-Yun Kang, Jang-Hern Lee + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins7072571

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Abstract

The administration of diluted bee venom (DBV) into an acupuncture point has been utilized traditionally in Eastern medicine to treat chronic pain. We demonstrated previously that DBV has a potent anti-nociceptive efficacy in several rodent pain models. The present study was designed to examine the potential anti-nociceptive effect of repetitive DBV treatment in the development of below-level neuropathic pain in spinal cord injury (SCI) rats. DBV was applied into the Joksamli acupoint during the induction and maintenance phase following thoracic 13 (T13) spinal hemisection. We examined the effect of repetitive DBV stimulation on SCI-induced bilateral pain behaviors, glia expression and motor function recovery. Repetitive DBV stimulation during the induction period, but not the maintenance, suppressed pain behavior in the ipsilateral hind paw. Moreover, SCI-induced increase in spinal glia expression was also suppressed by repetitive DBV treatment in the ipsilateral dorsal spinal cord. Finally, DBV injection facilitated motor function recovery as indicated by the Basso–Beattie–Bresnahan rating score. These results indicate that the repetitive application of DBV during the induction phase not only decreased neuropathic pain behavior and glia expression, but also enhanced locomotor functional recovery after SCI. This study suggests that DBV acupuncture can be a potential clinical therapy for SCI management.

Highlights

One of the pain therapies is the use of chemical stimulation into an acupuncture point to produce an analgesic effect and to reduce pain severity
Repetitive diluted bee venom (DBV) treatment had no effect on spinal cord injury (SCI)-induced thermal hyperalgesia (Figure 1D)
This study demonstrated that repetitive injections of DBV into the Joksamli acupuncture point during the induction phase of below-level neuropathic pain significantly produce a more potent and prolonged anti-nociceptive effect compared to repetitive DBV treatment during the maintenance phase (15 to 20 days after SCI) or repetitive injections of the vehicle

Summary

Introduction

One of the pain therapies is the use of chemical stimulation into an acupuncture point to produce an analgesic effect and to reduce pain severity. In this regard, the injection of diluted bee venom (DBV). Many experimental studies have demonstrated that injecting DBV into the Joksamli (ST36) acupuncture point produces a robust anti-nociceptive effect in various pain animal models, such as the writhing test, the formalin test, the carrageenan-induced inflammatory pain test and arthritis models [3,4,5,6]. We demonstrated that this DBV-induced anti-nociceptive effect is associated with the activation of descending coeruleospinal noradrenergic pathways, which subsequently activate spinal alpha-2 adrenoceptors [3,7,8]. We showed that a single injection of DBV (0.25 mg/kg) into ST36 temporarily alleviated thermal hyperalgesia [9] and that repetitive stimulation using DBV significantly alleviated neuropathic pain-induced mechanical and cold allodynia in a sciatic nerve chronic constrictive injury (CCI) model of rats [7,8]

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