Objective. Pain from arthritis has been associated with peripheral sensitization of primary sensory afferents and the development of inflammation at the dorsal horns. This study was undertaken to determine whether the role of spinal interleukin-1␤ (IL-1␤) in central processing of pain is important in the development of arthritis.Methods

Objective. To evaluate opioid receptor function as a basis for novel antinociceptive therapy in arthritis.Methods. We induced human -opioid receptor (HuMOR) expression in arthritic joints of mice, using the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) vector, which is capable of stably transducing dividing, growth-arrested, and terminally differentiated cells . Male and female Col1-IL-1␤ XAT -transgenic mice developed on a C57BL/6J background and wild-type littermates were studied.Results Conclusion. Our results indicate that prophylactic therapy with MOR overexpression in joints can successfully prevent the development of pain, dysfunction, and histopathologic abnormalities in the joints in arthritis. These findings may provide a basis for the future development of spatiotemporally controlled antinociceptive and antiinflammatory therapy for arthritis.Tissue injury caused by trauma, infection, and/or arthritis can produce inflammation, spontaneous pain, and hyperalgesia (1,2). In fact, according to US Public Health Service (PHS) estimates, Ͼ50 million Americans experience pain every year, with 45% seeking medical care at some point in their lives and 40% of pain patients never receiving adequate relief. Lipton et al (3) reported that 22% of the US population had experienced Ն1 episode of orofacial pain in the previous 6 months.

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