The role of prostaglandins in the central nervous system.

Abstract

The prostaglandin system is implicated in physiological and pathological responses of most tissues of the body. The background and breadth of this subject are documented in many reviews and recent symposia (15,25,27, 28,51, 108, 112, 114, 135). This review on the eNS covers advances in the past three years and concerns specifically the possible involvement of the prostaglandin system in the regulation of physiological and pathophysiolog­ ical processes. A wide range of stimuli (hormones, enzymes, trauma, infiammation, pyrogens, immune and allergic reactions, etc) activate a plasma membrane enzyme sequence in mamm alian cells that leads to the rapid de novo synthe­ sis of several prostaglandin types and in certain tissues thromboxanes as well. The biologically active compounds do not accumulate intracellularly and, therefore, under physiological conditions they occur only in trace amounts in tissues and most body fluids. Following formation, action and release, the compounds are rapidly converted by several enzymatic se­ quences to less active or inactive metabolites, which appear in blood and urine. Arachidonic acid, the predominant precursor unsaturated fatty acid in mammalian cells, becomes oxygenated to the prostaglandin endoperox-