Department Natural Science and Public Health, Zayed University- Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Neuropharmacology. 2011 Feb-Mar;60(2-3):496-504. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2010.11.004. Epub 2010 Nov 5.
Based on significant amount of evidence, it is now generally believed, that one underlying cause for neurodegenerative diseases, could be dysregulation in inflammatory processes. The actual mechanisms involved are not yet well understood. Several studies have demonstrated the potent analgesic and anti-inflammatory actions of thymulin related peptide (PAT), in different animal pain models. In this study, we investigated the efficacy of PAT in a recently developed model of neuroinflammation, in conscious rats, caused by intracerbroventricular (ICV) injection of endotoxin (ET). Our results indicate that ICV injection of PAT alone did not elicit significant alteration of nociceptive thresholds, while ET injections produced significant thermal hyperalgesia and cold allodynia. Pretreatment with PAT resulted in significant alleviation of ET-induced hyperalgesia and increased body temperature. In other sets of experiments, ICV injection of ET resulted in a significant elevation in the concentration of pro-inflammatory mediators measured in different areas of the brain; this elevation was significantly following pretreatment with PAT. Taken together these results provide evidence in support of our hypothesis that as a potent anti-inflammatory and analgesic peptide, PAT might have potential therapeutic use for the treatment of neurodegenerative conditions induced by silent or overt inflammation.
基于大量证据，人们现在普遍认为，神经退行性疾病的一个潜在原因可能是炎症过程的失调。但涉及的具体机制尚不清楚。几项研究表明，胸腺素相关肽（PAT）在不同的动物疼痛模型中具有强大的镇痛和抗炎作用。在这项研究中，我们在由脑室内（ICV）注射内毒素（ET）引起的清醒大鼠新开发的神经炎症模型中研究了 PAT 的疗效。我们的结果表明，单独注射 PAT 不会引起痛觉阈值的明显改变，而 ET 注射会导致明显的热痛觉过敏和冷触诱发痛。PAT 的预处理可显著减轻 ET 引起的痛觉过敏和体温升高。在其他实验中，脑室内注射 ET 会导致大脑不同区域测量的促炎介质浓度显著升高；PAT 的预处理后，这种升高明显。综上所述，这些结果为我们的假设提供了证据支持，即作为一种有效的抗炎和镇痛肽，PAT 可能具有治疗由沉默或显性炎症引起的神经退行性疾病的潜在治疗用途。
