The Similarity and Difference: Response and Molecular Characteristics of Peripheral Sensory Neurons Associated to Pain and Itch

The dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons take in charge of primary detection and transmission of peripheral pain and itch stimuli, however, as two distinct noxious sensation, it is still attractive for this field that how the DRG neurons differentially response and code pain and itch. Here, we investigate the response and activation spectrum of DRG neurons under peripheral pain and itch stimuli using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging, and find differences in the responsive intensity to pain and itch between multisensory neurons (both pain and itch) and single-sensory neurons (either pain or itch). Besides, single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) is used to reveal the heterogeneity of distinct subpopulations based on their expression of pain- or itch-related marker genes and indicates the similarity and difference of their transcriptomic changes under chronic pain and itch. Our results will provide fundamental insights to the peripheral pain and itch differential coding mechanism, moreover, benefit the development of pain and itch therapies. Overall design: High-throughput analyses the lumbar4-5 dorsal root ganglia(DRG) from acetone-ether-water (AEW) mice to descibe transcriptomic profiles under itch state. There are 2 samples from the AEW group.