Calreticulin expression in spinal cord of rat models of different pains

AIM:To detect the change of rat spinal calreticulin expression levels in three pain models and to investigate the possible involvement of calreticulin in pain development.METHODS:Formalin inflammatory pain model,spared never injury(SNI) model,and chronic constriction injury(CI) model were established.Then,the behavioral changes were observed and evaluated and c-Fos and calreticulin expressions in the spinal cord of rats were detected with immunohistochemistry and Western Blot,respectively.RESULTS:Compared with control groups,quantity of c-Fos positive neurons significantly increased in spinal dorsal horn of rats with formalin injection,SNI or CCI(P0.05);calreticulin expression levels were up-regulated significantly in spinal cord of rats with SNI and CCI(P0.05),but not in spinal cord of rats with formalin injection(P0.05).CONCLUSION:Up-regulation of calreticulin expression in spinal cord is involved in the development of chronic neuropathic pain induced by SNI and CCI.