ArticleEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2023
Genetic impact of blood C-reactive protein levels on chronic spinal & widespread pain.
Article in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Peritraumatic C-reactive protein levels predict pain outcomes following traumatic stress exposure in a sex-dependent manner.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Skin inflammatory cytokine gene expression in chronic whiplash-associated disorder: a cross-sectional study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2026Article
- Neuro-immune contributors to persistent musculoskeletal pain: from mechanisms to clinical assessment and management.Musculoskeletal science & practice · 2026Review
- Gene discovery and pleiotropic architecture of chronic pain in a genome-wide association study of >1.2 million individuals.Research square · 2025Article
- A Mendelian randomization study finds no evidence for causal effects of C-reactive protein on chronic pain conditions.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Gene discovery and pleiotropic architecture of Chronic Pain in a Genome-wide Association Study of >1.2 million Individuals.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Overuse injury induces persistent behavioral declines that correlate with higher IL-6 expression in the affected musculoskeletal tissues, circulation, and brain.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Should cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia be considered for preventing and managing chronic pain?Sleep · 2024Article
- No evidence for causal effects of C-reactive protein (CRP) on chronic pain conditions: a Mendelian randomization study.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeCausal mechanisms underlying systemic inflammation in spinal & widespread pain remain an intractable experimental challenge. Here we examined whether: (i) associations between blood C-reactive protein (CRP) and chronic back, neck/shoulder & widespread pain can be explained by shared underlying genetic variants; and (ii) higher CRP levels causally contribute to these conditions.
methodsUsing genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of chronic back, neck/shoulder & widespread pain (N = 6063-79,089 cases; N = 239,125 controls) and GWAS summary statistics for blood CRP (Pan-UK Biobank N = 400,094 & PAGE consortium N = 28,520), we employed cross-trait bivariate linkage disequilibrium score regression to determine genetic correlations (rG) between these chronic pain phenotypes and CRP levels (FDR < 5%). Latent causal variable (LCV) and generalised summary data-based Mendelian randomisation (GSMR) analyses examined putative causal associations between chronic pain & CRP (FDR < 5%).
resultsHigher CRP levels were genetically correlated with chronic back, neck/shoulder & widespread pain (rG range 0.26-0.36; P ≤ 8.07E-9; 3/6 trait pairs). Although genetic causal proportions (GCP) did not explain this finding (GCP range - 0.32-0.08; P ≥ 0.02), GSMR demonstrated putative causal effects of higher CRP levels contributing to each pain type (beta range 0.027-0.166; P ≤ 9.82E-03; 3 trait pairs) as well as neck/shoulder pain effects on CRP levels (beta [S.E.] 0.030 [0.021]; P = 6.97E-04).
conclusionThis genetic evidence for higher CRP levels in chronic spinal (back, neck/shoulder) & widespread pain warrants further large-scale multimodal & prospective longitudinal studies to accelerate the identification of novel translational targets and more effective therapeutic strategies.
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