# Identification of Sex Specific Regulatory Drug Targets for Chronic Neuropathic Pain

> **NIH NIH F99** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DALLAS · 2020 · $40,616

## Abstract

Project Summary
Chronic pain disproportionately affects women, but the majority of preclinical research uses male subjects.
Several recent studies show that microglia have a key role in the development of neuropathic pain in male
mice, but have no contribution in female mice, where as our preliminary data demonstrate that the
pharmacological inhibition of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptors reverses hyperalgesic priming
in female mice, but has no effect in male mice. We hypothesize that the mechanisms driving pain plasticity in
females rely on a neuronal regulatory program, but a neuro-immune regulatory program drives chronic pain in
males. Our research plan proposes to first analyze single-cell RNA sequencing data from male and female
mice to independently confirm our preliminary findings and elucidate new targets and/or mechanisms for the
development of novel neurotherapeutics for the treatment of chronic pain. We will next confirm that the gene
families identified to mediate chronic pain in mice are conserved in human chronic pain patients. We will do
this by performing weighted gene co-expression network analysis on existing mouse and human RNA-seq
datasets and then perform differential expression analysis on the genes identified in both mice and humans.
The work described in this proposal will unveil sex-specific pain plasticity mechanisms that can have an
immediate translation impact given the number of anti-CGRPP therapeutics available for use in patient
populations. New drug targets will also be identified for pre-clinical validation and development.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9989755
- **Project number:** 5F99NS113457-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS DALLAS
- **Principal Investigator:** Candler Ann Paige
- **Activity code:** F99 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $40,616
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-07-25 → 2021-07-24

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9989755

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9989755, Identification of Sex Specific Regulatory Drug Targets for Chronic Neuropathic Pain (5F99NS113457-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9989755. Licensed CC0.

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