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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Ion Channels and Channelopathies
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2024.1398409

Mini-Review: Insights into the Voltage-gated Sodium Channel, NaV1.8, and Its Role in Visceral Pain Perception

Provisionally accepted
J. Westley Heinle J. Westley Heinle Shannon Dalessio Shannon Dalessio Piotr K. Janicki Piotr K. Janicki Ann Ouyang Ann Ouyang Kent E. Vrana Kent E. Vrana Victor Ruiz-Velasco Victor Ruiz-Velasco Matthew D. Coates Matthew D. Coates *
  • College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Pain is a major issue in health care throughout the world. It remains one of the major clinical issues of our time because it is a common sequela of numerous conditions, has a tremendous impact on individual quality of life, and is one of the top drivers of cost in medicine, due to its influence on healthcare expenditures and lost productivity in those affected by it. Patients and healthcare providers remain desperate to find new, safer and more effective analgesics. Growing evidence indicates that the voltage-gated sodium channel Nav1.8 plays a critical role in transmission of pain-related signals throughout the body. For that reason, this channel appears to have strong potential to help develop novel, more selective, safer, and efficacious analgesics. However, many questions related to the physiology, function, and clinical utility of Nav1.8 remain to be answered. In this article, we discuss the latest studies evaluating the role of Nav1.8 in pain, with a particular focus on visceral pain, as well as the steps taken thus far to evaluate its potential as an analgesic target. We also review the limitations of currently available studies related to this topic, and describe the next scientific steps that have already been undertaken, or that will need to be pursued, to fully unlock the capabilities of this potential therapeutic target.

    Keywords: Nav1.8, Pain, visceral, Abdominal, voltage-gated sodium channel

    Received: 12 Mar 2024; Accepted: 29 Apr 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Heinle, Dalessio, Janicki, Ouyang, Vrana, Ruiz-Velasco and Coates. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Matthew D. Coates, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, 17033, Pennsylvania, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.