Transcriptomic analysis of periapical tissue biopies to understand dental pain.
Dental pain from apical periodontitis is an infection induced-orofacial pain condition that presents with diversity in pain phenotypes among patients. While 60% of patients with a full-blown disease present with the hallmark symptom of mechanical allodynia, nearly 40% of patients experience no pain. Furthermore, a sexual dichotomy exists, with females exhibiting lower mechanical thresholds under basal and diseased states.  We conducted a transcriptomic assessment of periapical biopsies (peripheral diseased tissue) from patients with persistent apical periodontitis. our study found several unique differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients, as well as novel candidate genes between sexes within the same pain group. Overall design: Surgical biopsies from symptomatic male (SM), asymptomatic male (AM), symptomatic female (SF), and asymptomatic female (AF) patients were collected and processed for bulk RNA sequencing. Three samples per symptom condition were profiled using an Illumina HiSeq 3000 system.