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An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity

Background and Objectives: Non-cancer chronic pain (CP) results from the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Twin studies help to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to complex traits such as CP. To date, twin studies on the heritability of pain phenotypes have relied...

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Autores principales: Fagnani, Corrado, Toccaceli, Virgilia, Tenti, Michael, Medda, Emanuela, Ferri, Maurizio, Stazi, Maria Antonietta, Raffaeli, William
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9697129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36363479
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina58111522
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author Fagnani, Corrado
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Tenti, Michael
Medda, Emanuela
Ferri, Maurizio
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Raffaeli, William
author_facet Fagnani, Corrado
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Tenti, Michael
Medda, Emanuela
Ferri, Maurizio
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Raffaeli, William
author_sort Fagnani, Corrado
collection PubMed
description Background and Objectives: Non-cancer chronic pain (CP) results from the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Twin studies help to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to complex traits such as CP. To date, twin studies on the heritability of pain phenotypes have relied almost exclusively on specific diagnoses, neglecting pain intensity. This study aims to estimate the genetic and environmental contributions to CP occurrence as a wide phenotype and its intensity among a non-clinical population. Materials and Methods: A nationwide online survey was conducted in February 2020 on 6000 adult twins enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry. A five-item questionnaire, designed and validated by our study group, was administered to detect the CP condition along with its intensity, underlying causes or triggers, treatments, and self-perceived efficacy. The twin study design was used to infer the relative weight of genes and environment on CP occurrence and intensity, and biometrical modelling was applied to these phenotypes. Results: A total of 3258 twins, aged ≥18, replied to the online survey (response rate 54%). These included 762 intact pairs (mean age: 39 years; age range: 18–82 years; 34% male; CP prevalence: 24%), of whom 750 pairs were subjected to biometrical modelling after the exclusion of pairs with either unknown zygosity or cancer-associated CP. Broad-sense heritability estimates were driven by non-additive genetic effects and were 0.36 (0.19–0.51) for CP occurrence and 0.31 (0.16–0.44) for CP intensity. No evidence emerged for either sex differences in genetic and environmental variance components or interactions of these components with age. Conclusions: Moderate non-additive genetic components were suggested for non-cancer CP occurrence and its intensity. These results encourage further research on the gene–gene interactions underlying CP liability and associated phenotypes, and also strengthen the need for prevention strategies to avoid CP occurrence or to decrease pain intensity.
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spelling pubmed-96971292022-11-26 An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity Fagnani, Corrado Toccaceli, Virgilia Tenti, Michael Medda, Emanuela Ferri, Maurizio Stazi, Maria Antonietta Raffaeli, William Medicina (Kaunas) Brief Report Background and Objectives: Non-cancer chronic pain (CP) results from the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Twin studies help to estimate genetic and environmental contributions to complex traits such as CP. To date, twin studies on the heritability of pain phenotypes have relied almost exclusively on specific diagnoses, neglecting pain intensity. This study aims to estimate the genetic and environmental contributions to CP occurrence as a wide phenotype and its intensity among a non-clinical population. Materials and Methods: A nationwide online survey was conducted in February 2020 on 6000 adult twins enrolled in the Italian Twin Registry. A five-item questionnaire, designed and validated by our study group, was administered to detect the CP condition along with its intensity, underlying causes or triggers, treatments, and self-perceived efficacy. The twin study design was used to infer the relative weight of genes and environment on CP occurrence and intensity, and biometrical modelling was applied to these phenotypes. Results: A total of 3258 twins, aged ≥18, replied to the online survey (response rate 54%). These included 762 intact pairs (mean age: 39 years; age range: 18–82 years; 34% male; CP prevalence: 24%), of whom 750 pairs were subjected to biometrical modelling after the exclusion of pairs with either unknown zygosity or cancer-associated CP. Broad-sense heritability estimates were driven by non-additive genetic effects and were 0.36 (0.19–0.51) for CP occurrence and 0.31 (0.16–0.44) for CP intensity. No evidence emerged for either sex differences in genetic and environmental variance components or interactions of these components with age. Conclusions: Moderate non-additive genetic components were suggested for non-cancer CP occurrence and its intensity. These results encourage further research on the gene–gene interactions underlying CP liability and associated phenotypes, and also strengthen the need for prevention strategies to avoid CP occurrence or to decrease pain intensity. MDPI 2022-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC9697129/ /pubmed/36363479 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina58111522 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Brief Report
Fagnani, Corrado
Toccaceli, Virgilia
Tenti, Michael
Medda, Emanuela
Ferri, Maurizio
Stazi, Maria Antonietta
Raffaeli, William
An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title_full An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title_fullStr An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title_full_unstemmed An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title_short An Italian Twin Study of Non-Cancer Chronic Pain as a Wide Phenotype and Its Intensity
title_sort italian twin study of non-cancer chronic pain as a wide phenotype and its intensity
topic Brief Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9697129/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36363479
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/medicina58111522
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