Sinomenine produces peripheral analgesic effects via inhibition of voltage-gated sodium currents

Sinomenium acutum has been used in traditional medicine to treat a painful disease such as rheumatic arthritis and neuralgia. Sinomenine, which is a main bioactive ingredient in Sinomenium acutum, has been reported to have an analgesic effect in diverse pain animal models. However little is known about the detailed mechanisms underlying peripheral analgesic effect of sinomenine. In the present study, we aimed to elucidate its cellular mechanism by using formalin-induced acute inflammatory pain model in mice. We found that intraperitoneal (i.p.) administration of sinomenine (50 mg/kg) suppressed formalin-induced paw licking behavior in both the first and the second phase. Formalin-induced c-Fos protein expression was also suppressed by sinomenine (50 mg/kg i.p.) in the superficial dorsal horn of spinal cord. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings from small-sized dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons revealed that sinomenine reversibly increased the spike threshold and the threshold current intensity for evoking a single spike and decreased firing frequency of action potentials evoked in response to a long current pulse. Voltage-gated sodium currents (INa) were also significantly reduced by sinomenine in a dose-dependent manner (IC50 = 2.3 ± 0.2 mM). Finally, we confirmed that intraplantar application of sinomenine suppressed formalin-induced pain behavior only in the first phase, but not the second phase. Taken together, our results suggest that sinomenine has a peripheral analgesic effect by inhibiting INa.