Snail venom could be used to treat pain due to spinal cord injury

Snail venom could be used to treat pain due to spinal cord injury

Snail venom could be used to treat pain due to spinal cord injury
mongabay.com
November 14, 2006

Cone snail venom may offer a new approach to treating severe pain according to researchers at the University of Utah.

“We found a new way to treat a chronic and debilitating form of pain suffered by hundreds of millions of people on Earth,” says J. Michael McIntosh, a University of Utah research professor of biology. “It is a previously unrecognized mechanism for treating pain.”



The research, published in the Nov. 13 in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that cone snail can treat nerve hypersensitivity and pain by blocking the “alpha9alpha10 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor” molecule in cells.

The shell of the sea-dwelling cone snail Conus regius, which uses its venom to kill worms so it can capture and eat them. A toxin from Conus regius venom helped University of Utah researchers identify an entirely new way to treat severe pain caused by injury to the nervous system. Photo Credit: Kerry Matz

“The numerous analgesic compounds currently available are largely ineffective” for chronic nerve pain, write McIntosh and his colleagues. “Our findings not only suggest a previously unrecognized molecular mechanism for the treatment of neuropathic pain, but also demonstrate the involvement of alpha9alpha10 nicotinic receptors” in nerve injury.



McIntosh says that any medication derived from the research is, at minimum, ten years away.

This article is based on a news release from the University of Utah.