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Papers of the Week


Papers: 18 Jan 2025 - 24 Jan 2025


2025 Jan 17


Commun Biol


39820760


8


1

Editor's Pick

An atlas of neuropathic pain-associated molecular pathological characteristics in the mouse spinal cord.

Authors

Dong FL, Yu L, Feng PD, Ren JX, Bai XH, Lin JQ, Cao DL, Deng YT, Zhang Y, Shen HH, Gong H, Sun WX, Chi DQ, Mei Y, Ma L, Yin MZ, Li MN, Zhang PF, Hu N, Zhou BL, Liu Y, Zheng XJ, Chen YF, Zhong D, Tao YX, Yan M, Jiang BC

Abstract

Peripheral nerve injury (PNI)-induced neuropathic pain (NP) is a severe disease with high prevalence in clinics. Gene reprogramming and tissue remodeling in the dorsal root ganglia (DRG) and spinal cord (SC) drive the development and maintenance of neuropathic pain (NP). However, our understanding of the NP-associated spatial molecular processing landscape of SC and the non-synaptic interactions between DRG neurons and SC cells remains limited. We here integrate spatial transcriptomics (ST) with single-nucleus RNA-sequencing (snRNA-seq) and bulk RNA-sequencing (bulk RNA-seq) to characterize regional pathological heterogeneity of the SC under NP conditions. First, the SC of NP mice manifests unique spatial atlases of genes, cell populations, cell-cell cross-talks, signaling pathways, and transcriptional regulatory networks compared to sham mice. We further report that injured DRG sensory neurons and the corresponding ventral horn of the SC show similar expression patterns after PNI. In addition, for the first time, we systematically exhibit “cross-talk omics” between the DRG neurons and SC dorsal horn neurons and glial cells, indicating an altered communication profile under NP conditions. Together, our findings decode the spatial and cellular heterogeneity of molecular pathological mechanisms underlying NP, providing a foundation for designing therapeutic targets for this disorder.