The human tachykinin NK 1 (short form) and tachykinin NK 4 receptor: a reappraisal

Abstract

Excessive secretion of placental neurokinin B into the circulation during the third trimester of pregnancy is seen in women with preeclampsia. To determine a role for neurokinin B, we have used a number of different animal models to ascertain the expression of the three tachykinin receptors (NK 1—both short and long forms, NK 2 and NK 3) and the putative human tachykinin NK 4 receptor in the placenta. Human and rat placenta express all three classical tachykinin receptors. However, we failed to reveal the expression of the short tachykinin NK 1 receptor or the tachykinin NK 4 receptor in any of 24 human tissues examined including the placenta. We conclude that the proposed short form of the tachykinin NK 1 receptor is a truncated genomic clone and that the human tachykinin NK 4 receptor is in fact, the guinea pig tachykinin NK 3 receptor. 1 1 The sequence data of the guinea pig tachykinin NK 3 receptor has been deposited with the EMBL/GenBank Data Libraries under Accession Number: AF426173.