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Changing channels in pain and epilepsy: Exploiting ion channel gene therapy for disorders of neuronal hyperexcitability
Author(s) -
Snowball Albert,
Schorge Stephanie
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
febs letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.593
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1873-3468
pISSN - 0014-5793
DOI - 10.1016/j.febslet.2015.05.004
Subject(s) - epilepsy , neuroscience , ion channel , chronic pain , genetic enhancement , pharmacotherapy , medicine , intervention (counseling) , translation (biology) , bioinformatics , biology , gene , psychiatry , receptor , messenger rna , genetics
Chronic pain and epilepsy together affect hundreds of millions of people worldwide. While traditional pharmacotherapy provides essential relief to the majority of patients, a large proportion remains resistant, and surgical intervention is only possible for a select few. As both disorders are characterised by neuronal hyperexcitability, manipulating the expression of the most direct modulators of excitability – ion channels – represents an attractive common treatment strategy. A number of viral gene therapy approaches have been explored to achieve this. These range from the up‐ or down‐regulation of channels that control excitability endogenously, to the delivery of exogenous channels that permit manipulation of excitability via optical or chemical means. In this review we highlight the key experimental successes of each approach and discuss the challenges facing their clinical translation.