The combined use of melatonin and morphine can improve morphine analgesic effects

inhibits NLRP3 inflammatory small body activation and blocks morphine analgesic tolerance. Photo Source: Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Pain is a major disease affecting human health, one of the most common clinical conditions, seriously affecting people's quality of life. Morphine is a widely used analgesic in clinical practice, but long-term use can cause side effects such as analgesic tolerance and addiction, and finding drugs that can relieve side effects such as morphine analgesic tolerance is an urgent need.
, the internationally renowned journal
published a paper by researchers from the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The study found that melatonin inhibits morphine-induced NLRP3 inflammatory small body activation, which in turn antagonists morphine analgesic tolerance, elucidating melatonin-morphine combined use can improve morphine analgesic effect, reduce long-term morphine use caused by analgesic tolerance of molecular mechanisms.
commonly known as "brain platinum", it has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and other effects. The team's previous animal experiments showed that pre-treatment of cells and mice with melatonin could save morphine-induced mitochondrial abnormalities, which in turn could save morphine-induced autophagy and ultimately block morphine-induced analgesic tolerance in mice.
, however, does melatonin injection enhance morphine analgesic effects in successfully constructed mouse models of morphine analgesic tolerance? If there is an effect, the specific molecular mechanism of this melatonin antagonists analgesic tolerance is not explained.
in this study, Yao Yonggang, a researcher at Kunming Animal Institute, and his team carried out systematic research at various levels, including molecular, cell and mouse animal models. Hair has now formed morphine analgesic tolerance in mouse models, given melatonin treatment, can still relieve morphine analgesic tolerance. Further studies have found that chronic morphine injections induce increased activity of oxidizing free agents (ROS), increased release of tissue protease B (CTSB) proteins, and induce activation of NLRP3 inflammatory small bodies;
also found that the combined use of morphine and melatonin improved the analgesic effects of the same dose of morphine. This study elaborates the molecular mechanism of melatonin antagonism analgesic tolerance, which is expected to provide theoretical basis and reference for exploring melatonin-morphine combination use in clinical analgesic practice. (Source: Zhang Qingdan, China Science Daily)
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