PAP protein discovered to make pain killers painless

UNC professor Mark Zylka has discovered a protein that will help make taking pain relievers not so much of a pain.

During the past two years, Zylka led a study on the functions of prostatic acid phosphatase (PAP), a protein found to convert neurons that generate pain into ones that suppress it.

Now researchers are working on making the medicine in pill form, and it could one day be used to  treat chronic pain, pain following surgery and child-birth pain.

Zylka’s study is the first to identify the functions of PAP protein in animals.

“I realized that pain is one of the most important things that you can study as a scientist, because it affects so many people really worldwide,” Zylka said.

Though PAP will be used to treat the same kinds of pain as morphine is used for now, PAP does not cause negative side effects like paralysis and sedation.

And unlike morphine, PAP does not work in the brain and is not addictive, Zylka said.

He said the next step in his study is to develop a PAP therapeutic protein treatment, which could come as a pill. In its current state, the medicine only can be taken through a spinal injection.

Zylka is working with professor Stephen Frye from the School of Pharmacy and said he hopes with Frye’s expertise, they successfully can formulate a pill.

“I think it really does show a lot of promise,” Zylka said.

The big discovery that changed the course of Zylka’s research and led to new understanding of the protein came six months into the study.

Zylka’s team realized that PAP is the same as another pain-sensing neuron, fluoride-resistant acid phosphatase. This discovery was not what Zylka hypothesized when he started the research.

“It led my lab in an entirely new direction, one that I certainly didn’t anticipate,” Zylka said.

From there, he and his team identified the mechanism by which PAP works in animals and its molecular identification.

Though Zylka’s study shows that PAP does show promise as a pain-reliever, the protein will not be showing up in hospitals any time soon, he said.

He said PAP still needs a substantial amount of research before it can be used on patients.

Zylka said PAP also could have functions other than pain relief, which he might discover through further research.

“Those are future directions to explore,” Zylka said.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.