Marked by pain

Chronic pain can be marked in the DNA

The work was published in the open-access journal PlosOne. To model pain, scientists injured nerves in the tight of laboratory mice through surgery. The purpose of the study? To understand if the lesion remains in the DNA of cells as a mark.

The research showed that epigenetic marks can be found in the DNA of cells from brains of mice suffering from chronic pain. Epigenetics comprises the chemical marks in the DNA and associated proteins that are the product of signals and stimuli arising from different sources. In the same way as each cell is characterized by its genes (genetics), it is now clear that cells are also characterized by the chemical modifications in those genes (epigenetics). Even if epigenetics cannot change the sequence of genes in the DNA molecule, it can control the way genes are "read". In this experiment, peripheral nerve injury led to epigenetic alterations in the brains of the mice, at the level of DNA, as if to remind the animals of the lesion suffered 6 months before.

credits: Ana Costa
A new system for quantifying pain can
originate from the new observations.  

 It is not clear yet which consequences originate from the epigenetic marks in specific regions of the brain. To better understand the mechanism observed, scientists induced symptom relief, to some extent, by means of exposing the mice to modified cages (a procedure somehow similar to a series of physiotherapy sessions). The changes in the symptoms were associated with changes in the epigenetic marks of the DNA molecule in the brain cells. Scientists learnt that the marks in the DNA could be related by the levels of pain.

In the future, will this information be useful to those patients suffering from chronic pain, regardless of its cause? The authors of this study are optimistic about the future and believe that one day it will be possible to treat pain if the epigenetic marks in the DNA are modulated by clinicians. And even if the treatment of pain is far from reality, these new observations can start by serving another purpose: that of quantifying pain. Currently, assessing pain in complex due to subject to subject variability. However, establishing a more objective method of quantification could be beneficial for the correct diagnosis and treatment of various pathologies. This new study can be the basis for a new, epigenetics-based, quantification method for pain.

Hard Drives or DNA?

Hard drives made of DNA:

not only genes can be stored in DNA molecules

Not only genes can be stored as DNA. Credits: Ana Costa

Ready, set, go: DNA is now much closer to become the new platform for information storage. Scientists have attempted to develop the technique for a while, and a recent report (commented here ) has proven that it is possible to store data in DNA as if it was a hard drive, meaning than not only small pieces of information can be stored, but that the advances are compatible with numerous big files. More importantly, there is a serious potential for this to become the ultimate tool in data storage: it is very stable over time and is becoming cheaper every day.

To test their hypothesis, scientists at the European Bioinformatics Institute(EBI) in Hinxton, UK, and at the Agilent Technologies in California, USA, had to decide what information to store in the DNA. They wanted to store files with different formats – pictures, texts, sounds - to prove the flexibility of the new platform. The choices were eclectic and included: a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnets, Marthin Luther King’s memorable “I have a dream” speech, Watson and Crick’s 1953 original paper on the molecular structure of DNA, and a photo of the EBI, located south of Cambridge.

Using an algorithm, bytes were converted into the 4-letter code found in the DNA molecule. Long molecules of DNA encoding particular pieces of information were then synthesized, a procedure that has greatly developed in the recent years, overcoming the high costs and errors that characterized this technique in the past. The synthesized DNA was stored lyophilized and shipped across the Atlantic at ambient temperature in common packaging. In this way, the authors wanted to prove that this is a very practical system that does not require any special handling or storage conditions. Upon arrival, the DNA was “read” so that the information could be decoded. The sequencing machines work fast nowadays and it didn’t take long until scientists were able to recite Shakespeare in the lab.

Are these promising results? Yes. Can we use DNA instead of hardware in the future? Maybe not. DNA will probably never become your first choice of storage material because you would need access to synthesizing and sequencing machines and those can only be found in well-equipped labs, not in one’s living room. However, if your lab produces high amounts of data and you are considering storing it for a long time but accessing it scarcely (or never) in the future, DNA may well serve your purposes

Right now scientists are busy discussing if DNA is the ultimate apocalypse-proof storage material that can survive fire, storms, earthquakes and all kinds of disasters in a much better way than would hard-drives. Of one thing at least we can be sure of: DNA was here much before hardware was, so it may well last longer too!!