Unravelling mechanisms and novel therapeutic targets for peripheral neuropathy and neuropathic pain

初级感觉神经元周围轴突的损伤或丢失与两种临床症状有关：周围神经病理性疼痛和周围神经病。神经性疼痛的治疗通常无效或与副作用相关，而且没有治疗周围神经病的方法。要纠正这一点，至关重要的是要了解两者的作用机制，并确定可以服从于新疗法开发的靶点。我的目标是在单个神经元水平上剖析随着时间的推移，由于物理轴突损伤、离子通道突变和暴露于神经毒性癌症化疗药物而发生的转录和功能变化，并探索过度兴奋和轴突退化之间的联系程度。这将涉及几种不同方法的组合：将单细胞图谱与疾病相关的功能变化相关联，确定患者干细胞来源神经元中的疾病易感性，高含量表型筛选，完整动物的种群成像，基因编辑，以及以高时空分辨率询问疼痛和感觉丧失的行为代用品。该项目将专注于周围感觉神经轴突物理破坏引起的神经病理性疼痛、电压门控钠通道突变引起的小纤维神经病以及化疗诱导的周围神经病，并将检查这些综合征是不同的，还是具有重叠风险因素和机制的感觉神经元病理谱的一部分。

Damage to or loss of the peripheral axons of primary sensory neurons is associated with two clinical syndromes: peripheral neuropathic pain and peripheral neuropathy. Treatment for neuropathic pain is typically ineffective or associated with side effects, and there is no treatment for peripheral neuropathy. To remedy this, it is essential that the mechanisms responsible for both are understood and targets identified that could be amenable to development of novel therapeutics. My goal is to dissect out at an individual neuron level the transcriptional and functional changes that occur over time in response to physical axonal injury, ion channel mutations and exposure to neurotoxic cancer chemotherapeutic agents, and explore the extent to which hyperexcitability and axon degeneration are linked. This will involve combinations of several different approaches: correlating single cell profiles and disease related functional changes, identifying disease susceptibility in patient stem derived neurons, high content phenotypic screens, population imaging in intact animals, genetic editing, and interrogation at high temporal and spatial resolution of behavioral surrogates of pain and sensory loss. The project will focus on neuropathic pain due to physical disruption of peripheral sensory axons, small fiber neuropathies due to voltage-gated sodium channel mutations and chemotherapy- induced peripheral neuropathy, and will examine if these syndromes are distinct or part of a spectrum of sensory neuron pathologies with overlapping risk factors and mechanisms.