MCP-1 : A potential candidate for pain management

Chronic pain is a debilitating condition resulted from the damage or dysfunction of the nervous system. By now, treatments for chronic pain are accompanied by a great deal of undesirable side-effects which contribute to limited efficacy for pain relieving. Thus, new efficient therapeutic approaches for remedy of painful neuropathies are needed. Chemokine signaling has been recently reported to play a crucial role in the regulation of neuroinflammatory responses and development of chronic pain processing. In particular, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), has been shown to be involved in diverse pain conditions via its receptor chemokines C-C motif receptor 2 (CCR2). In this review, we discussed studies published recently demonstrated that the crucial role of MCP-1/ CCR2 axis in chronic pain in different pathological pain models. Insights into the role of MCP-1/ CCR2 signaling pathway in pain processing will identify novel targets for therapeutic intervention of chronic pain.