Department of Physiology and Pharmacology "V. Erspamer", Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy.
Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug Research and Child Health (NEUROFARBA), Section of Pharmacology of Toxicology, University of Florence, 50139 Florence, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Sep 23;22(19):10250. doi: 10.3390/ijms221910250.
Unresolved inflammation represents a central feature of different human pathologies including neuropsychiatric, cardiovascular, and metabolic diseases. The epidemiologic relevance of such disorders justifies the increasing interest in further understanding the mechanisms underpinning the inflammatory process occurring in such chronic diseases to provide potential novel pharmacological approaches. The most common and effective therapies for controlling inflammation are glucocorticoids; however, a variety of other molecules have been demonstrated to have an anti-inflammatory potential, including neuropeptides. In recent years, the oxytocinergic system has seen an explosion of scientific studies, demonstrating its potential to contribute to a variety of physiological processes including inflammation. Therefore, the aim of the present review was to understand the role of oxytocin in the modulation of inflammation occurring in different chronic diseases. The criterion we used to select the diseases was based on the emerging literature showing a putative involvement of the oxytocinergic system in inflammatory processes in a variety of pathologies including neurological, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular disorders, diabetes and obesity. The evidence reviewed here supports a beneficial role of oxytocin in the control of both peripheral and central inflammatory response happening in the aforementioned pathologies. Although future studies are necessary to elucidate the mechanistic details underlying such regulation, this review supports the idea that the modulation of the endogenous oxytocinergic system might represent a new potential pharmacological approach for the treatment of inflammation.
未解决的炎症是包括神经精神、心血管和代谢疾病在内的不同人类病理的一个核心特征。这些疾病的流行病学相关性证明了人们越来越有兴趣进一步了解发生在这些慢性疾病中的炎症过程的机制，以提供潜在的新的药理学方法。控制炎症最常见和有效的治疗方法是糖皮质激素；然而，已经证明许多其他分子具有抗炎潜力，包括神经肽。近年来，催产素能系统的科学研究如雨后春笋般涌现，表明其具有参与多种生理过程的潜力，包括炎症。因此，本综述的目的是了解催产素在调节不同慢性疾病中发生的炎症中的作用。我们选择这些疾病的标准是基于新兴的文献，表明催产素系统在包括神经、胃肠道和心血管疾病、糖尿病和肥胖在内的各种病理中的炎症过程中具有潜在的作用。这里综述的证据支持催产素在控制上述疾病中发生的外周和中枢炎症反应方面的有益作用。尽管还需要进一步的研究来阐明这种调节的机制细节，但这篇综述支持这样一种观点，即内源性催产素能系统的调节可能代表治疗炎症的一种新的潜在药理学方法。
