| 1. |
- Amandusson, Åsa, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Estrogen-induced alterations of spinal cord enkephalin gene expression
- 1999
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Ingår i: Pain. - : Elsevier. - 0304-3959 .- 1872-6623. ; 83:2, s. 243-248
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Enkephalin-synthesizing neurons in the super®cial laminae of the spinal and trigeminal dorsal horn are critical components of the endogenous pain-modulatory system. We have previously demonstrated that these neurons display intracellular estrogen receptors, suggesting that estrogen can potentially influence their enkephalin expression. By using Northern blot, we now show that a bolus injection of estrogen results in a rapid increase in spinal cord enkephalin mRNA levels in ovariectomized female rats. Thus, 4 h after estrogen administration the enkephalin mRNA-expression in the lumbar spinal cord was on average 68% higher (P , 0:05) than in control animals injected with vehicle only. A small increase in the amount of enkephalin mRNA was also seen after 8 h (P , 0:05), whereas no difference between estrogen-injected and control animals was found after 24 h or at time periods shorter than 4 h. Taken together with the previous anatomical data, the present findings imply that estrogen has an acute effect on spinal opioid levels in areas involved in the transmission of nociceptive information.
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| 2. |
- Hallbeck, Martin, et al.
(författare)
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Preprovasopressin mRNA is not present in dorsal root ganglia of the rat
- 1996
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Ingår i: Neuroscience Letters. - : Elsevier BV. - 0304-3940 .- 1872-7972. ; 209:10, s. 125-128
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immunohistochemical studies on colchic ine-treated rats have suggested that more than half of the neurons in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) contain vasopressin. Thus, vasopressin would be the most commonly found peptide in DRG neurons. In the present study we have reexamined the presence of vasopressin in DRG neurons, using a sensitive in situ hybridization method employing long riboprobes that will detect very small amounts of mRNA. The C3, C6, T2, T12, L2 and L5 DRG were studied. None of these ganglia contained any preprovasopressin mRNA. Yet, dense labeling for preprovasopressin mRNA was seen on simultaneously processed hypothalamic sections and a heavy preprotachykinin mRNA expression was seen in adjacent DRG sections. These findings demonstrate that vasopressin is not produced in DRG in normal rats.
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