Symposium: Advances in Histamine Research

Abstract

The function of histamine in living organisms has interested investigators since its discovery shortly after the turn of the century and consequently has lead to the documentation of volumes of published data. It is rather surprising that the overall understanding of the function of histamine is still scant compared with other mediator substances discovered approximately during the same period of time. Perhaps the ubiquitous presence and the many effects of histamine in the body have diluted the efforts of investigators and have prevented a clear definition of all of its function. Both the local actions of histamine as a paracrine transmitter causing indirect responses as well as the multireceptor actions have no doubt also hampered the progress. It has been repeatedly stated that the development of the H2-receptor antagonists was one of the major accomplishments in the histamine field, which has lead to a new wave of increased histamine research activity and provided new meaning to earlier, unexplained data.In a series of symposia initiated by the Canadian Histamine Research Association, an attempt is being made to integrate previous findings with recent advances, and to familiarize those who are interested in histamine with the Canadian investigators and their research areas. The first symposium was held June 14, 1983, in conjunction with the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies and was published in this journal, June, 1984. The present symposium, the second in the series, deals with some aspects of earlier data in light of present knowledge and future prospects, as well as recent observations on receptor action and localization, and the mechanisms of action of drugs involved in the inhibition of histamine release. Because the local action of histamine has posed particular problems for the assessment of histamine concentration in relation to its action, it has become evident that not only histamine concentrations alone but also its metabolites would be of importance to demonstrate a correlation between endogenous histamine and its function. Thus, various assay procedures and methods are reviewed for the measurement of histamine metabolites to illustrate present capabilities in this field.The support for the symposium came from the Canadian Physiological Society, Smith Kline and French Canada Ltd., and Beckman Instruments Inc.