Papers of the Week

Chronic pain is a complex, debilitating, and escalating health problem worldwide, impacting one in five adults. Current treatment is compromised by dose-limiting side effects including high abuse liability, loss of ability to function socially and professionally, fatigue, drowsiness, and apathy. PICK1 has emerged as a promising target for the treatment of chronic pain conditions. Here, we developed and characterized a cell-permeable fatty acid conjugated bivalent peptide inhibitor of PICK1 and assessed its effects on acute and chronic pain. The myristoylated myr-NPEG4-(HWLKV)2 (mPD5), self-assembled into core-shell micelles that provided favourable pharmacodynamic properties and relieved evoked mechanical and thermal hypersensitivity, as well as ongoing hypersensitivity, and anxio-depressive symptoms in mouse models of neuropathic and inflammatory pain following subcutaneous administration. No overt side effects were associated with mPD5 administration, and it had no effect on acute nociception. Finally, neuropathic pain was relieved far into the chronic phase (18 weeks post SNI surgery) and while the effect of a single injection ceased after a few hours, repeated administration provided pain relief lasting up to 20 hours after the last injection.