Papers of the Week

Chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP), with a high prevalence and rising epidemic of opioids crisis, is typically derived from acute postoperative pain. Our knowledge on the forming of chronic pain mostly derives from mechanistic studies of pain processing in the brain and spinal cord circuits, yet most pharmacological interventions targeting CNS came to be unhelpful in preventing CPSP. Revealing the peripheral mechanisms behind the transition from acute to chronic pain after surgery could shine a light on the novel analgesic regimens. Based on two recognized animal models in simulation of acute and chronic postsurgical pain, we provide a next-generation RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) data set to evaluate the time-course transcriptomic variation in the tissue of skin, muscle and dorsal root ganglion (DRG) in these two pain models. The aim of this study is to identify the potential origin and mechanism of the persistent postoperative pain, and further to explore effective and safer analgesic regimens for surgical patients.