Abstract
It has been shown that the pituitary contains a cytotropic factor (CTF) that stimulates the secretion of catecholamines by dopaminergic neurons of the hypothalamus. In the present study, CTF was purified from rat pituitaries and found by means of mass spectrometric analysis to be adenosine. This finding was corroborated by the observations that CTF behaves identically to adenosine when subjected to liquid chromatography, is inactivated and converted to inosine by adenosine deaminase, and is qualitatively and quantitatively indistinguishable from adenosine in its biological activity. It is concluded that pituitary adenosine is a trophic factor for hypothalamic dopaminergic neurons.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 5351-5355 |
Number of pages | 5 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 92 |
Issue number | 12 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 6 1995 |
Keywords
- adenosine
- dopamine
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General