Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P01178 (oxytocin)
 15,767 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Although only about 8 per cent of pregnancies end prematurely, as much as 75 per cent of perinatal deaths are due to prematurity. Since it is difficult to identify the predisposing factors in individual cases and to prevent the premature onset of labor, it is necessary to try to arrest such labor when it occurs. A theoretical scheme for the mechanism of labor in the human subject is presented. This permits the identification of four possible points of attack: (1) replacement of progesterone to reduce the myometrial sensitivity to oxytocin, (2) administration of beta-mimetic agents to relax the uterus and make it unresponsive to stimuli, (3) administration of ethanol to block oxytocin secretion, and (4) administration of anti-inflammatory drugs to inhibit prostaglandin synthesis. Results obtained with ritodrine, a beta-mimetic agent, and with ethanol are presented as illustration. Ritodrine gave somewhat better results than ethanol, possibly because the treatment was continued after discharge of the patients.
 ...
PMID:Prevention of prematurity. 1 89

12 prealbumines of rat brain water-soluble fraction were studied. Neither lipid components nor carbohydrate ones were found out in the proteins. Three of the proteins appeared to be RNA-proteids. Their subcellular distribution was investigated. The effects of temperature, salts, acids and ethanol on disc electrophoretic spectrum of brain prealbumines were closely observed. The amino acid composition, properties, compartmentation, tissue and species specificity of one of the prealbumines were studied in detail. The protein is marked as BTB-protein, as it migrates under disc electrophoresis in 7,5% polyacrylamide gel with the "witness" front of bromothemol blue (BTB). The content of BTB-protein is 0.06--0.08 gr per 100 gr of wet tissue. The protein is RNA-proteid. Its molecular weight is 10,000--20,000. BTB-protein contains 42 mole % of acidic amino acids and 5.4 mole % of alkaline ones. The protein was found in nuclear and cytoplasmic fractions. It is mainly an all-organs protein. Small amount of this protein is found in blood serum. BTB-protein can be found on the disc electrophoregramms of embryo and newborn rats brain proteins, as well as of the brain of other mammals, birds and amphibia. BTB-protein is resistant to boiling and to the effects of salts, acids, ethanol. It is suggested that BTB-protein has heterogenous structure and may be of neurophysin nature.
 ...
PMID:[Investigation of rat brain prealbumins]. 1 53

Oxytocin, elevated estrogen-progesterone ratio, fetal corticosteroids, prostaglandins, catecholamines, and changes in uterine blood flow have all been implicated as triggers of labor. In approximately one-third of cases of threatened premature labor contractions stop spontaneously. Thus placebo-controlled randomized trials of any new drug for inhibition of premature labor are necessary, as the spontaneous cessation of contractions always favors the claimed therapeutic efficacy. Alcohol inhibits the release of endogenous oxytocin and has an additional direct effect on the myometrium. In one study alcohol was more effective than placebo in the postponement of delivery. Isoxsuprine, ritodrine, and terbutaline have also been shown to be better than placebo in the inhibition of premature labor, and the beta adrenergic agents appear to be more effective than alcohol. Prostaglandin inhibitors such as indomethacin are currently under investigation. Success is correlated with early administration of the therapy, which requires treating some patients whose contractions might have stopped spontaneoulsy. As different factors may be involved in triggering premature labor, if one therapeutic approach fails another should be initiated promptly.
 ...
PMID:The pharmacologic inhibition of premature labor. 2

Medicaments are used to prepare for instrument abortions in the 1st trimester and as inducers of abortion in the 2nd trimester. The effects, side effects, and dangers depend on the substances used and the route of application, which can be vaginal, cervical, injection, instillation, extraamniotic, intraamniotic, intravenous, or intramuscular. In the past, intraamniotic instillation of a 20% salt solution was the most common 2nd trimester method in Japan, the US, and Eastern Europe, giving a success rate of 90%. Serious side effects prompted substitution of extraamniotic instillation, which rarely produces serious side effects. Instillation of a 60% urea solution into the amniotic fluid in combination with oxytocin or prostaglandin produces an abortion in 13-21 hours, with a failure rate of 3% and a frequency of cervical laceration of under 1%. Extraamniotic use of a .1% solution of rivanol yields a success rate of about 85%, with a relatively long average time to explusion of 24-41 hours. In case of failure the procedure can be repeated. The advantage of the Rivanol method is the rarity of infectious complications. Alcohol is not used as a human abortifacient because it produces necrosis in the decidua and placenta. Prostaglandins are used in most 2nd trimester abortions. Research is underway to identify derivatives that will have an extended uterine impact without serious side effects. Different routes of administration have different effectiveness rates and dangers. All prostaglandins cause side effects including pain during uterine contractions, gastro-intestinal reactions, nausea, vomiting, fever, and headaches. Specific preparations are associated with other effects, some of them life-threatening. Emergency treatment should be available when these substances are used. Adjuvant measures may be employed before adminstration of an abortifacient agent to soften the cervix, or after administration to hasten the procedure. The choice of procedure depends upon the personality, health, and other characteristics of the woman and the experience of the doctor and the clinic.
 ...
PMID:[Chemical methods of abortion]. 48 68

Chronic exposure of mice to ethanol leads to the development of functional tolerance to the hypothermic and sedative effects of this drug. Treatment of the animals with the mammalian antidiuretic hormone, arginine vasopressin, results in a prolonged duration of such tolerance, in comparison to animals exposed to ethanol but not to the hormone. Another neurohypophyseal hormone, oxytocin, at an equimolar dose, is ineffective in maintaining tolerance. The centrally mediated effects of arginine vasopressin on memory processes may be related to the hormone-induced prolongation of ethanol tolerance.
Drug Alcohol Depend
PMID:Peptide--neurotransmitter interactions influencing ethanol tolerance. 52 81

The responses of isolated smooth muscle tissues to the polypeptides oxytocin, vasopressin and bradykinin were evaluated in the presence of the tetrahydroisoquinoline salsolinol. Significant antagonism occurred to oxytocin and vasopressin while the effects of bradykinin were unaltered. These results suggest that the in vivo formation of salsolinol after ethanol consumption could have significant physiological consequences.
 ...
PMID:Antagonism of smooth muscle responses to oxytocin and vasopressin by salsolinol. 89 6

Neurophysiological, neurochemical and behavioral studies of the effects of ethanol on the nervous system have so far failed to identify specific, direct, primary mechnisms of action that may account for the typical pattern of alcohol intoxication in vivo. Electroencephalogram and evoked response studies indicate biphasic effects in the intact subject, which may correlate better with the level of arousal than with a specific drug action. Effects on spinal reflexes are also biphasic, probably representing the net result of direct influence on resting membrane potential, primary afferent depolarization, and neurotransmitter release. With the exception of its inhibitory effect on release of oxytocin, vasopressin and possibly other hypothalamic peptides, ethanol does not appear notably different in its spectrum of effects from a wide range of other hypnotics, anesthetics and minor tranquilizers. Interpretation of the findings is complicated by the fact that functional alteration of any given neuronal system by ethanol in vivo may reflect a) direct local action of ethanol on the cells under study, b) change in the input to those cells because of an action elsewhere in the nervous system, c) effects of ethanol metabolites, or d) indirect consequences of decreased blood flow, oxygen or metabolite supply, hormonal action, or hypothermia, due to disturbances of homeostasis in the whole body as a result of deep intoxication. To date, attempts to circmvent b, c and d by the study of brain tissue in vitro have shown consistent effects of ethanol only at concentrations well above those that are meaningful in vivo. Relatively specific patterns of action of different drugs in vivo may prove to be largely dependent on their customary rates and routes of administration, and on summation of minor differences in the dose-response curves with different types of neuron, even though the basic types of molecular action may be essentially similar.
 ...
PMID:Direct effects of ethanol on the nervous system. 109 39

Nicotine stimulation, induced by cigarette smoking, has previously been identified as a potent stimulus for vasopressin release in humans. In this study, radioimmunoassay measurements of plasma vasopressin and human neurophysin were performed on samples taken from 14 normal subjects during cigarette smoking. Significant rises in vasopressin occurred in 10 of the 14 subjects and the same 10 had significant rises in neurophysin. Pretreatment with ethanol in 3 subjects either eliminated or greatly blunted the responses of both vasopressin and neurophysin to cigarette smoking. These studies indicate that the release mechanisms for vasopressin and neurophysin are closely linked in humans.
 ...
PMID:Nicotine-stimulated release of neurophysin and vasopressin in humans. 120 97

The present study tested the hypothesis that the attenuation by oxytocin of tolerance to ethanol-induced hypothermia relies upon an impairment of the putative conditioning processes underlying environment-specific tolerance. According to the conditioning model of tolerance, such tolerance occurs because an opposite compensatory response conditioned to ethanol-paired cues attenuates ethanol's effects. Tolerance to ethanol-induced hypothermia was established to a particular environment over 4 days by injecting mice (daily) with oxytocin 2 h before ethanol, outside the colony room. As controls, other mice were injected similarly but following testing in the animal room. We found that oxytocin suppressed the conditioned compensatory response, revealed by injecting saline to every group in the tolerance-associated environment. These results suggest that oxytocin acted, at least partly, via an inhibition of the associative learning processes that facilitate tolerance development.
 ...
PMID:Oxytocin blocks the environmentally conditioned compensatory response present after tolerance to ethanol-induced hypothermia in mice. 136 94

Highly purified populations of guinea pig Leydig cells were incubated with a maximally stimulating dose of 100 ng/mL LH for 24 h in the presence of increasing concentrations of sodium ascorbate. Sample supernatants were extracted, concentrated under vacuum, and reconstituted with acidified absolute ethanol. Samples were analyzed for oxytocin using high-performance liquid chromatography with electrochemical detection and known concentrations of an authentic oxytocin standard. Leydig cells stimulated with 0, 25, and 50 microM ascorbate produced and secreted 40.1 +/- 1.23, 77.4 +/- 13.8, 74.2 +/- 26.3 pg of an oxytocin-like peptide, respectively, per 1 x 10(6) cells. These results indicate that guinea pig Leydig cells are capable of producing an oxytocin-like peptide de novo and that low concentrations of ascorbate stimulate the production of this peptide in Leydig cells cultured in vitro.
 ...
PMID:HPLC determination of an oxytocin-like peptide produced by isolated guinea pig Leydig cells: stimulation by ascorbate. 145 39


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>