• YAKHAK HOEJI
• /
• v.29 no.4
• /
• pp.165-175
• /
• 1985

It has been reported that clonidine is $\alpha_2$-adrenergic agonist, potnet new hypotensive drug in human with low dose. The change in blood pressure is implicated in the concentration, release, uptake and metabalism of catecholamine and activity of catecholamine synthesizing enzyme in specific brain areas. Thus the experiment was set up to investigate the effect on the enzyme activity of clonidine alone and that of clonidine pretreated with imipramine or tranylcypromine by measuring activity of the Dopa-forming enzyme, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and epinephrine forming enzyme, phenylethanolamine-N-methyl transferase (PNMT) in brain and adrenal gland. The TH activity in brainstem and substantia nigra is decreased by intraperitoneally administered clonidine 0.1mg/kg twice a day for 5 days, but increased in the rats pretreated with imipramine 10mg/kg intraperitoneally given 26 hrs and 5 hrs before decaptitation. However the TH activity in all regions of brain is increased in rats pretreated with tranylcypromine 10mg/kg intraperitoneally twice a day for 5 days. The effect of clonidine on TH activity is due to inhibition release of norepinephrine by activation of presynaptic $\alpha_2$-adrenoreceptor, axon terminal result in the decrease of TH activity in brain. The increasing of TH activity in brain results in attenuation of the role of clonidine by pretreated with imipramine or tranylcypromine in rats. The activity of PNMT was not significantly affected by clonidine, imipramine and tranylcypromine in adrenal gland.

• Toxicological Research
• /
• v.6 no.1
• /
• pp.89-97
• /
• 1990

Neural regulation of phenylethanolamine N-meth-yltransferase (PNMT) was studied with reserpine as a neuronal agent in rat adrenal medulla. The enzyme activity assay and northern blot analysis were performed to determine whether the induction of PNMT activity after reserpine treatment was associated with elevation of mRNA coding for PNMT. The i.p. administration of reserpine (2.5 mg/kg) on alternate days fot 4 injections to rats brought about 30% increase of adrenal medullary PNMT activity and approximately 60% stimulation of the PNMT mRNA level in rat adrenal gland. A dose of 10 mg/kg of reserpine was chosen to perform optimum induction of PNMT activity in the rat adrenal gland based on the results of dose response curve of reserpine. Time course reserpine (10 mg/kg) effects on the rat adrenal medullary PNMT were as follows: 1. Peripheral PNMT activity reached maximum level after 7 days of drug treatment on alternate days. 2. Trans-synaptic stimulation by reserpine increased pretranslational activity of rat adrenal PNMT, but not translational activity. 3. Immunotitration of PNMT molecule after reserpine treatment indicated that reserpine produced an enzyme with greater antibody affinity than endogenous molecule in the rat adrenal gland.