Browsing by Subject "Opioid peptides"

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    Dynorphin expression, processing and receptors in the alveolar macrophages, cancer cells and bronchial epithelium of lung cancer patients
    (Murcia: F. Hernández, 2010) Mousa, Shaaban A.; Krajnik, Malgorzata; Sobanski, Piotr; Kowalewski, Janusz; Bloch-Boguslawska, Elzbieta; Zylicz, Zbigniew; Schafer, Michael
    Functional evidence suggests that opioid peptides such as dynorphin are involved in the regulation of airway macrophage functions and of human cancer growth. However, anatomical evidence for components of a putative dynorphin network within lung cancer patients is scarce. Tissue from lung cancer patients was examined immunohistochemically for all components of a local dynorphin (DYN) network. Double immunofluorescence microscopy analysis revealed colocalization of the opioid precursor PDYN with its end-product DYN, and key processing enzymes prohormone convertases 1 and 2 and carboxypeptidase E, as well as the kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) within alveolar macrophages and cancerous cells in varying degrees among patients. Moreover, chromograninAimmunoreactive pulmonary neuroendocrine cells expressing DYN were close to substance P- and KORimmunoreactive sensory nerves. Our findings give a first hint of a neuroanatomical basis for a peripheral DYN network, conceivably regulating pulmonary, immune and cell-proliferative functions within the human lung, most likely in a paracrine/autocrine fashion.