Neurogenic modifications induced by substance P in an organ culture of human skin.

Neurogenic inflammation of the skin observed after topical application of an irritant substance or environmental stimulation induces vascular changes and the production of inflammatory mediators. Substance P (SP) is one of the main neuropeptides which trigger an inflammatory response in the skin. So, with the aim to develop an alternative method to study neurogenic inflammation of the skin, we used an organ culture of human skin.

Endothelin expression in human megakaryoblastic leukemia cell lines and normal platelet precursors.

The aim of the present investigation was to determine whether endothelin (ET) could be expressed in and released from the human leukemia megakaryoblastic cell lines HEL, MEG-01, DAMI and the normal human platelet progenitors. Using the reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) on total RNA isolated from the cells, we amplified a cDNA of the expected size (453 bp). Southern-blotting hybridization revealed that RT-PCR products from the cell lines were specific of ET-1 mRNA.

Expression of angiotensin I-converting enzyme in the human gastric HGT-1 cell line.

We have previously shown that angiotensin I-converting enzyme (ACE) was expressed by epithelial cells of the rabbit gastric mucosa. In a search to obtain a cell model to study the regulation of ACE expression of gastric origin and its relationship with gastrin-cholecystokinin peptides, which have been proposed as ACE substrates, we investigated whether the HGT-1 human gastric cell line, which expresses gastrin, could also express ACE, using enzymatic and immunodetection methods as well as Northern-blot analysis and polymerase chain reaction. Results show that HGT-1 cells expressed a protein with a molecular weight of 130-140 kDa whose enzymatic and immunological properties were identical to those of ACE.

Localization of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) mRNA in rabbit gastric mucosa by in situ hybridization.

In a previous study we showed, by immunohistochemical analysis on rabbit fundic mucosa, that in addition to its usual presence on the luminal plasma membrane of endothelial cells, angiotensin converting-enzyme (ACE) was localized inside granules of surface and neck mucous cells and within granules of chief cells. The aim of the present study was to localize ACE mRNA in cells of the rabbit fundic mucosa by in situ hybridization with a 35S-labeled probe. This probe was a cDNA fragment (406 BP) encoding a portion of the rabbit ACE mRNA obtained by reverse transcription followed by polymerase chain reaction on total RNA extracted from fundic mucosa.