Conti A, Maestroni G J
Istituto Cantonale di Patologia, Centre for Experimental Pathology, Locarno, Switzerland.
J Pineal Res. 1996 Apr;20(3):164-72. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-079x.1996.tb00253.x.
Earlier studies on the immunoregulatory role of the pineal gland and melatonin revealed that melatonin counteracts immunosuppression and thymus atrophy induced by stress or corticosteroid treatment. Moreover, melatonin protects mice injected with encephalitogenic viruses, synergizes with interleukin-2 (IL-2) in cancer immunotherapy and rescues hematopoiesis from cancer chemotherapy toxicity. In regard to the mechanism of action, melatonin seems to act directly on CD4+ lymphocytes which release opioid peptides with immunoenhancing properties along with other cytokines. Because of these findings, we investigated the role of the pineal gland and melatonin in autoimmune diabetes mellitus type I using, as an experimental model, female non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Mice were pinealectomized or treated chronically with melatonin (injected subcutaneously or administered via drinking water). This paper shows that neonatal pinealectomy accelerates the development of the disease in female NOD mice while exogenous melatonin protects the animals. This in spite of the fact that melatonin increased the production of insulin autoantibodies (IAA). We conclude that the pineal gland and melatonin influence the development of autoimmune diabetes although the mechanism of action that needs further investigation.
早期关于松果体和褪黑素免疫调节作用的研究表明，褪黑素可对抗应激或皮质类固醇治疗诱导的免疫抑制和胸腺萎缩。此外，褪黑素可保护注射致脑炎病毒的小鼠，在癌症免疫治疗中与白细胞介素-2（IL-2）协同作用，并使造血功能从癌症化疗毒性中恢复。关于作用机制，褪黑素似乎直接作用于CD4+淋巴细胞，这些细胞会释放具有免疫增强特性的阿片肽以及其他细胞因子。基于这些发现，我们以雌性非肥胖糖尿病（NOD）小鼠作为实验模型，研究了松果体和褪黑素在I型自身免疫性糖尿病中的作用。对小鼠进行松果体切除或长期用褪黑素治疗（皮下注射或通过饮水给药）。本文表明，新生小鼠松果体切除会加速雌性NOD小鼠疾病的发展，而外源性褪黑素可保护动物。尽管褪黑素会增加胰岛素自身抗体（IAA）的产生。我们得出结论，松果体和褪黑素会影响自身免疫性糖尿病的发展，尽管其作用机制仍需进一步研究。
