Protein kinase Cε (PKCε) is a transforming oncogene and plays an important role in many cellular processing. In the present paper, we review the development of experimental researches on the acute-
chronic pain transformation. Results indicated that
prostaglandin E2 (
PGE2) / EP1 receptor-Gq-PKCε is an important signaling pathway to modulate
chronic pain in peripheral dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons, and also plays a role in the later stage of
hyperalgesia during transformation from acute to
chronic pain. PKCε in DRG neurons induces mechanical and thermal
hypersensitivity respectively by over expression of transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) and TRP ankyrin-1 (TRPA1), further mediating the transformation from acute to
chronic pain. Whereas, PGE2-evoked activation of EP1-Gq-PKCε signaling may be the key link in initiating the
pain translation process through regulating downstream TRPA1 and TRPV1.
Electroacupuncture (EA) has been used to effectively relieving various types of acute and
chronic pain for decades, and can significantly inhibit the expression of PKCε and its upstream and downstream molecules. Therefore, it can be inferred that there exists a possibility of EA interventions in interfering the transformation from acute to
chronic pain by regulating peripheral PKCε signaling pathway.