New relief from sunburn

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="200" caption="Scientists use novel approach to investigate the mechanism of sunburn"][/caption]

Scientists have come up with a novel way to identify the mechanism of sunburn, and as a result have identified a molecule which controls sensitivity to UVB radiation.

The King’s College London scientists believe the molecule may also be a new target for medicines to treat pain caused by common inflammatory conditions like arthritis.

Researchers exposed small patches of skin on healthy human volunteers to UVB radiation, creating a small area of sunburn. The treated skin became tender with a peak sensory change a day or two later. At this peak, researchers took biopsies of the affected skin and analysed it for hundreds of pain mediators.

Several of these mediators were over-expressed, so researchers examined the biology of these factors in rats to find out if they were likely to be responsible for driving the pain in the sunburnt skin. The team discovered the mediator CXCL5 was significantly over expressed in human biopsies and the biology in rats, which suggests it’s responsible for driving pain in sunburnt skin.

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“Traditionally scientists have first studied the biology of diseases in animal models to identify mechanisms relevant to creating that state,” said Dr David Bennett. “But this does not often translate into effective treatments in the clinic.”

“What we have done is reverse this traditional method by identifying putative mediators in humans and exploring this further in rats.”

Bennett said this allowed them to see that the rats’ response to these pain mediators closely paralleled those occurring in humans. Further tests carried out on rats showed that a neutralising antibody targeting CXCL5 significantly reduced the sensitivity to pain caused by UVB radiation.

“These findings have shown for the first time the important role of this particular molecule in controlling pain from exposure to UVB,” said Professor Steve McMahon. “But this study isn’t just about sunburn – we hope that we have identified a potential target which can be utilised to understand more about pain in other inflammatory conditions.”

Bennett said researchers hope to extend this approach to other types of pain, in particular chronic pain with the hope that it will speed up the process of turning science into effective treatments. The work was published in Science Translational Medicine.