The cell protein suppresses pain eight times more effectivelyLONDON: More people suffer from pain than from heart disease, diabetes and cancer combined, but many of the drugs used to relieve suffering are not completely effective or have harmful side effects.Now researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the University of Helsinki have discovered a new therapeutic target for pain control, one that appears to be eight times more effective at suppressing pain than morphine.The scientists pinpointed the identity and role of a particular protein that acts in pain-sensing neurons, or nerve cells, to convert the chemical messengers that cause pain into ones that suppress it.“This protein has the potential to be a groundbreaking treatment for pain and has previously not been studied in pain-sensing neurons,” said lead study author Mark J. Zylka, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell and molecular physiology at UNC.The biological basis of pain is complex. To study the transmission of painful signals throughout the body, many researchers use “marker” proteins that label pain-sensing neurons. One such marker, FRAP (fluoride-resistant acid phosphatase), has been employed for this purpose for nearly 50 years, but the gene that codes for its production was never identified.Until researchers at UNC found that FRAP is identical to PAP (prostatic acid phosphatase), a protein routinely used to diagnose prostate cancer whose levels increase in the blood of patients with metastatic prostate cancer. The new protein suppressed pain as effectively as morphine but for longer. One dose of PAP lasted for up to 3 days, much longer than the 5 hours gained with a single dose of morphine.