Neuron-astrocyte metabolic coupling facilitates spinal plasticity and maintenance of inflammatory pain [data]

DOI

Long-lasting pain stimuli can trigger maladaptive changes in the spinal cord, reminiscent of plasticity associated with memory formation. Metabolic coupling between astrocytes and neurons has been implicated in neuronal plasticity and memory formation in the CNS, but neither its involvement in pathological pain nor in spinal plasticity has been tested. Here, we report a form of neuroglia signaling involving spinal astrocytic glycogen dynamics triggered by persistent noxious stimulation via upregulation of the Protein Targeting to Glycogen (PTG) in spinal astrocytes. PTG drove glycogen build-up in astrocytes, and blunting glycogen accumulation and turnover by Ptg gene deletion reduced pain-related behaviors and promoted faster recovery by shortening pain maintenance in mice. Furthermore, mechanistic analyses revealed that glycogen dynamics is a critically required process for maintenance of pain by facilitating neuronal plasticity in spinal lamina 1 neurons. In summary, our study describes a previously unappreciated mechanism of astrocyte-neuron metabolic communication through glycogen breakdown in the spinal cord that fuels spinal neuron hyperexcitability.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.11588/data/AMDH7G
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-024-01001-2
Metadata Access https://heidata.uni-heidelberg.de/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.11588/data/AMDH7G
Provenance
Creator Marty-Lombardi, Sebastián ORCID logo; Lu, Shiying; Ambroziak, Wojciech ORCID logo; Schrenk-Siemens, Katrin; Wang, Jialin; DePaoli-Roach, Anna A. ORCID logo; Hagenston, Anna M. ORCID logo; Wende, Hagen ORCID logo; Tappe-Theodor, Anke ORCID logo; Simonetti, Manuela ORCID logo; Bading, Hilmar; Okun, Jürgen G.; Kuner, Rohini ORCID logo; Fleming, Thomas; Siemens, Jan ORCID logo
Publisher heiDATA
Contributor Siemens, Jan; Gimenez-Cassina, Alfredo
Publication Year 2024
Funding Reference Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)DFG SFB1158 ; European Research Council ERC-CoG-772395 ; International Human Frontier Science Program Organization LT000762/2019-L
Rights CC BY 4.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
OpenAccess true
Contact Siemens, Jan (Heidelberg University, Department of Pharmacology)
Representation
Resource Type Experimental data (histology, PCR, metabolite analysis, behavior analysis etc); Dataset
Format text/plain; application/zip
Size 690; 857808116
Version 1.1
Discipline Life Sciences; Medicine
Spatial Coverage Heidelberg University