| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 1993: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
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| Research Abstract |
In order to elucidate the physiological role of the arginine synthesis in the brain, the distribution of the argininosuccinate synthetase (ASS) , the key enzyme of the arginine synthesis, was mapped in the brain of the Japanese monkey using polyclonal antibody against recombinant human ASS.Immunoreactive materials was observed mostly in the neurons but not seen in the glia cells. ASS-like immunoreactive nerve cells were distributed from the spinal cord through the cerebral cortex ; the results suggested that ASS affects the widely distributed, neuromodulatory system in the brain.
Nextly, arginine is the substrate of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) , which produces nitric oxide, a possible neurotransmitter in the nervous system. Therefore, the distributions of neuronal ASS and NOS immunoreactivities were compared in the Japanese monkey brain. The present study showed that the co-existence of ASS and NOS was not found in many neuronal group, such as the cerebral cortex and the striatum, but occured in small numbers of nuclei such as the lateral intermediate nucleus of the spinal cord. This suggested that only part of the distribution of ASS relates to nitric oxide synthesis and that ASS should have at least another role in the brain : argininosuccinate, the product of ASS,is suggested to have a neuromodulator role in the brain.
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