Development of therapy against low back pain by inhibition of nerve growth factor

NGF expression in the media from cultured intervertebral disc tissues was evaluated at protein level in the patients with low back pain due to intervertebral disc (IVD) disease who underwent spine surgery for spinal canal stenosis (SCS), intervertebral disc herniation (IDH) or trauma. The expression of NGF protein in degenerative disc from SCS was significantly higher than that from normal IVD in both annulus fibrosus (AF) and nucleus pulposus (NP), especially in AF, its expression level was significantly higher in AF than NP. In the IDH samples, the expression of NGF protein was significantly higher than that in the normal IVDs, and the significant difference of NGF expression was not determined between AF and NP from IDH. IDH showed the trend of higher expression of NGF protein level than that of SCS, however the significant difference was not recognized. As a result, it might be possible that in the degenerative disc disease such as SCS, NGF expression from AF may be one of the causes of chronic low back pain, and in IDH patients, NGF expressed in both AF and NP may be the onset of acute low back pain.