Nociceptor to macrophage communication through CGRP/RAMP1 signaling drives endometriosis-associated pain and lesion growth
Endometriosis is a debilitating and painful gynecological inflammatory disease affecting approximately 15% of women. Current treatments are ineffective for a significant fraction of patients, underscoring the need for new medical therapies with long-term benefits. Given the relevance of neuroimmune communication in different disease outcomes, we investigated the role of CGRP-mediated neuroimmune communication in endometriosis. We found that mouse and human endometriosis lesions contained CGRP and RAMP1. In mice, nociceptor ablation reduced pain, monocyte recruitment, and lesion size, suggesting that nociceptor activation and neuropeptide release contribute to endometriosis lesion growth and pain. In vitro, CGRP-induced pro-endometriosis macrophages (PEMs) showed impaired efferocytosis and supported endometrial cell growth in a RAMP1-dependent manner. Treatment with FDA-approved drugs that block CGRP-RAMP1 signaling reduced mechanical hyperalgesia, spontaneous pain, and lesion size in mice. Altogether, our data demonstrates the effectiveness, cellular mechanisms and pre-clinical safety of non-hormonal and non-opioid CGRP/RAMP1 blocking therapies, which may lead to clinical benefit for endometriosis patients. Overall design: Peritoneal cavity washes from sham littermate controls (no lesions) and lesion-bearing TRPV1-creDTA and littermate control mice were collected at 28 days post endometriosis (dpi) induction