Previous electrophysiological studies have shown that tachykinin-mediated excitatory junction potentials are enhanced in a ricin model of inflammatory bowel disease. The present study extends these findings by investigating the contractile response to stimulation of noncholinergic nerves and tachykinin agonists. According to rank order potencies, the rabbit ileal circular muscle was neurokinin ...

Hemokinin 1 (HK-1) is a new member of the tachykinin peptide family that is expressed in hematopoietic cells. Recent reports studying mouse, rat, and human orthologs of HK-1 demonstrate a broader distribution than originally reported. Our previous studies demonstrated that HK-1, by promoting proliferation, survival, and possibly maturation of B-cell precursors, plays an important role in B lymp...

Tachykinins are present in lamprey spinal cord. The goal of this study was to investigate whether an endogenous release of tachykinins contributes to the activity of the spinal network generating locomotor activity. The locomotor network of the isolated lamprey spinal cord was activated by bath-applied N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and the efferent activity recorded from the ventral roots. When s...

BACKGROUND Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) may be associated with the exacerbation of atopic dermatitis. We investigated whether SEB causes proliferation of sensory C-fibers and subsequent enhancement of plasma leakage induced by sensorineural stimulation in rat skin. METHODS SEB was applied intracutaneously to the abdomen of preweaning and adult rats. Evans blue dye leakage into the skin ...

The endocrine regulation of vertebrate reproduction is achieved by the coordinated actions of several peptide neurohormones, tachykinin among them. To study the evolutionary conservation and physiological functions of neurokinin B (NKB), we identified tachykinin (tac) and tac receptor (NKBR) genes from many fish species, and cloned two cDNA forms from zebrafish. Phylogenetic analysis showed tha...

Tachykinins are widely distributed in mammalian central nervous system and exert a variety of actions through individual specific receptors. Neurotransmitter functions of substance P (SP), a member of mammalian tachykinins, have been firmly established in the spinal cord; SP is highly concentrated in the superficial layers of the dorsal horn, is released upon electrical stimulation, produces a ...

Inhalation of cold air in guinea pigs increases total pulmonary resistance (RL), an effect that is mediated by kinins and tachykinins. Bronchoconstriction induced by bradykinin (BK) inhalation in guinea pigs is markedly inhibited by nitric oxide (NO) release from the airway epithelium. We investigated whether endogenous NO modulates the increase in RL induced by inhalation of cold air. In anest...

STKR is an insect G protein-coupled receptor, cloned from the stable fly Stomoxys calcitrans. It displays sequence similarity to vertebrate tachykinin [or neurokinin (NK)] receptors. Functional expression of the cloned STKR cDNA was obtained in cultured Drosophila melanogaster Schneider 2 (S2) cells. Insect tachykinin-like peptides or "insectatachykinins," such as Locusta tachykinin (Lom-TK) II...