Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P01189 (beta-endorphin)
 21,003 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Total RNA has been prepared from human leukocytes from patients with chronic lymphoblastic leukemia (CLL) as well as from post mortem human caudate nucleus, hypothalamus, cerebellum and cerebral cortex. Dot-blot and Northern blot analysis, using a human proenkephalin A clone and SP-6 derived "complementary" proenkephalin A RNA respectively, revealed the existence of proenkephalin A-like RNA:s in CLL-leukocytes with the same characteristics as in caudate nucleus, hypothalamus, and cortex. Furthermore, RIA and Western blot analysis confirmed that immunoreactive pro-enkephalin A activity is present in human CLL-leukocytes. The progress in DNA recombinant technology has allowed the study of opioid peptide regulation at the transcriptional and translational-posttranslational level. Studies on the distribution and quantitation of preproenkephalin A mRNA in bovine, rat and human central nervous system (CNS) have recently been reported. Different opioid peptides, related to the enkephalins, dynorphins and beta-endorphin have also been detected in tissues outside the CNS including the adrenal medulla and in pheochromocytomas. Northern blot analysis and cDNA-cloning confirmed that the proenkephalin A gene is indeed expressed in these tissues. Proenkephalin A derived peptides are potentially significant in nervous disorders. We have chosen to investigate whether the corresponding gene is expressed not only in CNS-tissues but also in human leukocytes, cells readily obtained in individual patients.
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PMID:Proenkephalin A-like mRNA in human leukemia leukocytes and CNS-tissues. 378 78

Although previous studies have suggested that human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) may express pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) mRNA and synthesize its related peptides, the patho-physiological role of POMC expressed in peripheral cells is not known. In this study, we investigated the POMC gene expression in various types of human leukemia cell lines by Northern blot analysis and the reverse transcribed-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method. The POMC mRNA was not detected by Northern blot analysis in all cell lines tested except the Jurkat cell line which is derived from T-lymphoblastic leukemia. The POMC mRNA expressed in the Jurkat cells was smaller than that in the human anterior pituitary gland. The RT-PCR method revealed that a truncated-POMC transcript could be detected not only in lymphoblastic leukemia cells but also in erythroid and myeloid cells. Interestingly, two cell lines of monocytic leukemia, J-111 and U937, did not express the truncated-POMC mRNA. Treatment with concanavalin-A stimulated truncated POMC mRNA expression and ACTH-like immunoreactivity in lymphoblastic leukemia cells with T-(Jurkat) and B-(BALL-1) lymphocyte phenotypes. These results confirm that human leukemia cells except for monocytic cells express a truncated-POMC mRNA as well as in the human normal PBMC.
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PMID:Expression of truncated pro-opiomelanocortin gene transcript in human leukemia cell lines. 979 Feb 76