Shanghai Jiaotong University reveals the mystery of kissing analgesia

At the 12th Asia Pacific Alliance of pharmacologists conference just held in Shanghai, Zhang Jingyang, Ph.D., from school of pharmacy, Shanghai Jiaotong University, reported the experimental research results on the effect and mechanism of Chinese medicine gelsemium on pain relief, especially cancer pain, and won the high praise of the participants and the excellent exhibition award of the conference According to the report, the research paper has been published in the international authoritative journal of pain Cancer pain seriously affects the quality of life of cancer patients About 30% - 50% of cancer patients have different degrees of pain in the treatment process, while the proportion of advanced cancer patients who experience cancer pain is as high as 60% - 90% There are about 9 million new cancer patients in the world every year In China, the number of cancer patients is also increasing rapidly year by year Therefore, the control and treatment of cancer pain is an important challenge for medical staff and researchers Zhang Jingyang said that currently, the choice of cancer pain treatment drugs is generally based on the three-step program developed by the World Health Organization For moderate to severe cancer pain, the first drug is morphine, which is well known However, long-term administration of morphine can produce tolerance and lead to a large increase in dosage, and even produce hyperalgesia, which limits its clinical application Therefore, the discovery and development of effective and intolerant analgesics is of great significance to reduce the pain and improve the quality of life of cancer patients "Kissing can effectively reduce the pain caused by cancer and other patients," Zhang's study confirmed As a kind of liana with high toxicity and biological activity, it is widely distributed in Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan and other places in China, and also in the United States The main active components of Gelsemium are alkaloids, among which gelsemin A is an important component As early as the 1960s, there have been clinical reports that the extract of gelsemia (mainly containing gelsemia and gelsemia) has been used to treat cancer pain effectively in China, but there is no systematic research Zhang Jingyang used the model of bone cancer pain in rats After three years of hard work, he studied the analgesic effect and mechanism of gelsemin a on cancer pain The results show that gelsemin a has a strong analgesic effect on bone cancer pain, and different from morphine, long-term administration of gelsemin a does not produce tolerance This result strongly supports the effectiveness of gelsemin a in the treatment of cancer pain, and provides a preclinical research basis for the development of gelsemin a in the treatment of pain Zhang Jingyang also used modern biological research methods such as radioligand competition technology and gene silencing technology to further prove that the analgesic effect of gelsemin A is produced by activating α 3-glycine receptor on spinal cord nerve cells α 3-glycine receptor is an important component of the central nervous system down-regulation system and an important target for the treatment of pain.