Peripheral changes of endocannabinoid system components in episodic and chronic migraine patients: A pilot study

This dataset includes raw data of the paper “Peripheral changes of endocannabinoid system components in episodic and chronic migraine patients: A pilot study”. In this paper, the gene expression of endocannabinoid system components was assayed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells of 25 subjects with episodic migraine, 26 subjects with chronic migraine with medication overuse (CM-MO) and 24 age-matched healthy controls.

The protein expression of cannabinoid receptors 1 and 2 as well as DNA methylation changes in genes involved in endocannabinoid system components were also evaluated. Both episodic migraine and CM-MO subjects showed higher cannabinoid receptor 1 and cannabinoid receptor 2 gene and protein expression compared to controls. Fatty acid amide hydrolase gene expression, involved in ananda-mide degradation, was lower in migraine groups compared to healthy control subjects. N-arachidonoyl phosphatidyl-ethanolamine phospholipase D gene expression was significantly higher in all migraineurs, as were monoacylglycerollipase and diacylglycerol lipase gene expressions. The above markers significantly correlated with the number of migraine days and with the days of acute drug intake.

The findings point to transcriptional changes in endocannabinoid system components occurring in migraineurs and suggest these peripheral changes could be amenable for a wider adoption to further investigate their role and applicability in the clinical field.