Dynorphin expression, processing and receptors in the alveolar macrophages, cancer cells and bronchial epithelium of lung cancer patients

• Autores: Shaaban A Mousa, Malgorzata Krajnik, Piotr Sobansk, Janusz Kowalewsk, Elzbieta Bloch-Boguslawska, Michael Schäfer
• Localización: Histology and histopathology: cellular and molecular biology, ISSN-e 1699-5848, ISSN 0213-3911, Vol. 25, Nº. 6, 2010, págs. 755-764
• Idioma: inglés
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  • Functional evidence suggests that opioid peptides such as dynorphin are involved in the regulation of airway macrophage functions and of human cancer growth. However, anatomical evidence for components of a putative dynorphin network within lung cancer patients is scarce. Tissue from lung cancer patients was examined immunohistochemically for all components of a local dynorphin (DYN) network. Double immunofluorescence microscopy analysis revealed colocalization of the opioid precursor PDYN with its end-product DYN, and key processing enzymes prohormone convertases 1 and 2 and carboxypeptidase E, as well as the kappa-opioid receptor (KOR) within alveolar macrophages and cancerous cells in varying degrees among patients. Moreover, chromograninA-immunoreactive pulmonary neuroendocrine cells expressing DYN were close to substance P- and KOR-immunoreactive sensory nerves. Our findings give a first hint of a neuroanatomical basis for a peripheral DYN network, conceivably regulating pulmonary, immune and cell-proliferative functions within the human lung, most likely in a paracrine/autocrine fashion