Conserved systems and functional genomic assessment of nociception.

Chronic pain represents a significant public health concern and current therapies do not adequately meet patient needs. With the advent of genomic technologies, pain researchers have begun to identify key loci associating with human pain diseases, and these data are instructing the development of next generation analgesics. Although human genetics efforts have been effective, complementary approaches, including functional genomics, may provide additional insight into pain genetics and help identify additional new drug targets. In the present review, we discuss the use of fruit fly systems biology combined with mammalian genetics to accelerate the discovery of novel pain genes and candidate drug targets.