cDNA clones to human prepro-gastrin-releasing peptide (prepro-GRP) mRNA detect synthesis of prepro-GRP-related transcripts in 4 of 7 small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cell lines and 1 of 2 metastatic SCLC tumors examined. A correlation is noted between prepro-GRP gene expression and the occurrence of bombesin-related immunoreactivity in SCLC cell lines. Examination of the structure of prepro-GRP tr...

Recent studies have shown that aberrantly expressed gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) and its receptor (GRP-R) critically regulate tumor cell differentiation in colon cancers developing in humans and mice. This finding suggested that the ability of GRP/GRP-R to promote a well-differentiated phenotype in colon cancer might reflect a re-capitulation of a normal role in regulating intestinal organog...

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) has been suggested as a novel regulatory peptide in the female reproductive tract but the presence of GRP and GRP mRNA in the non-neurogenic tissue of the cervix has not yet been clarified. In the present study, immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization were used to reveal the distribution of GRP immunoreactivity and expression of GRP mRNA in the bovine cerv...

The relationship between receptor number and agonist-induced intracellular responses has been well studied in receptors coupled to adenylate cyclase; however, for receptors coupled to phospholipase C (PLC), very little is known about the effect of receptor number on receptor-mediated processes. To explore this issue, we investigated the effect of the number of receptors for gastrin-releasing pe...

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) causes multiple effects in humans by activating a specific heptaspanning receptor. Within the gastrointestinal tract, GRP receptors (GRP-R) are not normally expressed by mucosal epithelial cells except for those lining the gastric antrum. In contrast, recent studies have shown that up to 40% of resected colon cancers aberrantly express this receptor. This is impo...

Mammalian Gastrin Releasing Peptide (GRP) has a widespread distribution and multiple stimulating effects on metabolism, release of regulatory peptides, gastrointestinal and pancreatic secretions, and behaviour. GRP is a potent mitogen for a number of tumor types including colon and lung. Although GRP is known to stimulate the growth of renal tumors, little is known of its synthesis, distributio...

Gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) has been reported to be implicated in the pathogenesis of inflammatory disorders. The migration and proliferation of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) are key components of vascular inflammation that leads to the development of atherosclerosis. The present study aimed to investigate the molecular effect of GRP on VSMC proliferation and migration. We report tha...

Bombesin (BN) interacts with two mammalian receptor subtypes termed gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP)-preferring (GRP-R) and neuromedin B (NMB)-preferring (NMB-R) that may mediate the satiety action of BN. We examined the feeding behavior of mice that were deficient in the GRP-R (GRP-R KO) to assess the overall contribution of this receptor subtype in the feeding actions of BN-related peptides. G...

Constitutive, unregulated autocrine growth is thought to be an important mechanism whereby cancer cells gain a proliferative advantage over nonmalignant cells. The question addressed here was whether the autocrine growth system for gastrin-releasing peptide (GRP) in human small cell lung carcinoma cells is, in fact, always expressed in a constitutive, unregulated fashion. Lag, rapid, and platea...