Effect Of Neuronostatin On Murine Cerebral H₂S Pathway And Acute Pancreatitis

Based on bioinformatic and proteomic analysis of evolutionarily conserved sequences and cleavage sites in the pro-somatostatin protein, neuronostatin as a novel endogenous peptide was found and widely expressed in hippocampus, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract and diverse tissues. The existing research has confirmed that neuronostatin plays important roles in the regulation of nervous system, cardiovascular function and hormone secretion. In this study, we investigated the effect of neuronostatin on H2S pathway in hippocampus and cerebral cortex of mice and sodium taurocholate-induced acute pancreatitis in rats. Neuronostatin was administrated by intracerebroventricular in mice. After one hour, our findings demonstrated that neuronostatin increased H2S concentration, CBS activity and cAMP level of hippocampus and cerebral cortex. Furthermore, the change of H2S concentration in hippocampus was more significant than cortex at the same dose of neuronostatin. These results showed that neuronostatin influenced H2S pathway in hippocampus and cortex, which might induce their biological effect.In order to investigate the effect of neuronostatin on acute pancreatitis, neuronostatin was injected into the external jugular vein30min before retrograde infusion of sodium taurocholate into the pancreaticobiliary duct. After6h, histological damage of pancreas was evaluated by pancreas weight and histopathologic examination. The blood sample was collected to determine serum amylase and lipase activities. We found that neuronostatin groups had a reduction in interstitial edema, acinar cell vacuolization, and inflammatory infiltration of pancreas compared with model group. Biochemical data showed serum amylase and lipase activities were decreased in pretreated groups by comparison with the model group. Results suggested that neuronostatin ameliorated the histological damage of sodium taurocholate-induced acute pancreatitis in rats. Neuronostatin might be potentially capable of ameliorating pancreatic damage in pancreatitis. We hope that this research can provide a basis to further investigate physiological roles of neuronostatin on hippocampus and cortex as well as the prophylaxis and treatment of pancreatitis.