Wensen Jiang, Juliane D Glaeser, Giselle Kaneda, Julia Sheyn, Jacob T Wechsler, Stephen Stephan, Khosrowdad Salehi, Julie L Chan, Wafa Tawackoli, Pablo Avalos, Christopher Johnson, Chloe Castaneda, Linda E A Kanim, Teerachat Tanasansomboon, Joshua E Burda, Oksana Shelest, Haneen Yameen, Tiffany G Perry, Michael Kropf, Jason M Cuellar, Dror Seliktar, Hyun W Bae, Laura S Stone, Dmitriy Sheyn
Low back pain (LBP) is often associated with the degeneration of human intervertebral discs (IVDs). However, the pain-inducing mechanism in degenerating discs remains to be elucidated. Here, we identified a subtype of locally residing human nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs), generated by certain conditions in degenerating discs, that was associated with the onset of discogenic back pain. Single-cell transcriptomic analysis of human tissues showed a strong correlation between a specific cell subtype and the pain condition associated with the human degenerated disc, suggesting that they are pain-triggering...
December 6, 2023: Science Translational Medicine