Immunohistochemical mapping of delta sleep-inducing peptide in the cat brain and hypophysis. Relationships with the LHRH system and corticotropes.

Using the indirect immunofluorescence method, the distribution of the delta sleep-inducing peptide was studied in the cat brain and hypophysis. Delta sleep-inducing peptide-like-immunoreactive cell bodies mostly visualized in colchicine-pretreated animals were mainly found scattered throughout the diagonal band of Broca, the ventral septum and the anterior hypothalamic areas. A few immunoreactive cell somata were also seen in the ventrolateral hypothalamic area and more occasionally in the triangular septal nucleus. The heaviest concentrations of delta sleep-inducing peptide-like-immunoreactive varicose fibres and terminal-like structures were observed in the septo-preoptic region, in the median eminence and pituitary stalk. Some other brain regions supplied with few delta sleep-inducing peptide-immunoreactive fibres included the fimbria-fornix, the dorsal part of the subfornical organ, the medial habenular nucleus and more caudally, the periaqueductal gray. Elution-restaining experiments revealed that delta sleep-inducing peptide-like immunoreactivity frequently occurred in luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone-immunoreactive neurons and vice versa. At the pituitary level, delta sleep-inducing peptide-like immunoreactivity was detected in most, if not all, melanocorticotropes of the pars intermedia and further in a large subpopulation of corticotropes mainly located in the zona tuberalis of the pars distalis. Taken together these anatomical findings support the view that delta sleep-inducing peptide (or a closely related molecular form) could play a modulatory role at various levels of the hypothalamo-pituitary system.