Progress of P2X7 Receptor Research in Chronic Pain

Abstract: Pathological pain can be usefully divided into three categories， inflammatory pain， a pain related to peripheral tissue damage/inflammation， neuropathic pain， pain mainly associated with peripheral nerve injury or illness， and cancer pain， pain induced by tumors infiltrating/metastasizing and resulting from treatment. Treatment of chronic pain is always accompanied by a poor response， thus， effective therapeutic strategy is imminently needed. P2X7 receptor is one of the purinergic receptors， and belongs to ligand gating non selective ion channel. Numerous studies imply a critical role of P2X7 receptor in chronic pain. Targeting to P2X7 receptor will be a new approach for treatment of pathological pain. In this paper， we reviewed the progress of P2X7 receptor in chronic pain.

CSTR: 32200.14.cjcb.2014.05.0002