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 genetic correlation between migraines and endometriosis, we sought evidence for 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 nociceptors support endometriosis lesions. In vitro, CGRP-treated macrophages showed impaired efferocytosis and supported endometrial cell growth in a RAMP1-dependent manner. Treatment with FDA-approved drugs that block CGRP-RAMP1 signaling reduced evoked and spontaneous pain, and lesion size. Since the lack of drug efficacy at reducing ongoing pain drives most endometriosis therapy failure, our data demonstrating effectiveness of non-hormonal and non-opioid CGRP/RAMP1 blocking therapies may lead to clinical benefit for endometriosis patients.