ReviewThe tachykinin NK1 receptor in the brain: pharmacology and putative functions
Introduction
After its discovery in 1931, substance P (SP) remained the only mammalian member of the family of tachykinin peptides for several decades. Tachykinins thus refer to peptides sharing the common C-terminal amino acid sequence Phe–X–Gly–Leu–Met·NH2 (Table 1). In recent years the family of mammalian tachykinins has grown with the isolation of two novel peptides from bovine and porcine central nervous system (CNS), neurokinin A and neurokinin B (McLean, 1996). In parallel with the identification of multiple endogenous tachykinins several classes of tachykinin receptors were discovered. It has been observed that SP and the non-mammalian tachykinins eledoisin and kassinin exhibited different agonist potencies depending on the used bioassay system (McLean, 1996). Iversen et al. (see Lee et al., 1986; McLean, 1996), identified two distinct tachykinin potency profiles in smooth muscle preparations and proposed the existence of SP-P and SP-E receptors. Evidence for the existence of the two pharmacologically distinguishable sites was further provided by binding experiments with peptide radioligands (Beaujouan et al., 1986; Danks et al., 1986). With the discovery of a third binding site (Laufer et al., 1986) and the isolation of novel mammalian tachykinins, some by several groups in parallel, the nomenclature of tachykinins and their receptors became completely confusing. In 1984, at the tachykinin symposium in Montreal the following nomenclature was proposed (McLean, 1996). The endogenous mammalian tachykinins were designated as neurokinin A (previously also referred to as neurokinin α, neuromedin L or substance K) and neurokinin B (previously also named neurokinin β or neuromedin K). Furthermore, the receptors would be referred to as tachykinin NK1 receptor (previously SP-P), tachykinin NK2 receptor (previously SP-E, SP-K, NK-A) and NK3 (previously also SP-E, SP-N, NK-B). SP is the most potent tachykinin for the tachykinin NK1 receptor, whereas neurokinin A exhibits the highest affinity for the tachykinin NK2 receptor and neurokinin B for the tachykinin NK3 receptor, respectively. It has, however, to be pointed out clearly that all mammalian tachykinins have limited selectivity for a particular neurokinin receptor. Table 2 summarizes this limited selectivity. It is important to note that despite the early evidence for a cross-talk between different tachykinins at the different receptors, the tachykinin NK1 receptor was de facto considered to be the SP receptor and, in other words, SP to be the physiological ligand for the tachykinin NK1 receptor. In accordance, similar conclusions were applied to neurokinin A and the tachykinin NK2 receptor, and neurokinin B and the tachykinin NK3 receptor (Maggi and Schwartz, 1997). This dogma was so well established that homologous binding experiments using the `wrong' tachykinin were not performed on the cloned receptors until recently (Maggi and Schwartz, 1997). With this in mind, it seems extremely difficult to sort out a particular function for one of the tachykinin peptides. Thus, it seems more rational to focus on the distribution and pharmacology of particular tachykinin receptors. Due to the more abundant distribution of tachykinin NK1 receptors (Quartara and Maggi, 1998) and the variety of available synthetic agonists and antagonists for this tachykinin receptor (McLean, 1996; Maggi and Schwartz, 1997; Quartara and Maggi, 1997, Quartara and Maggi, 1998), this review predominantly describes tachykinin NK1 receptor pharmacology. The distribution and putative function of tachykinin NK1 receptors in the peripheral nervous system and in the gut has been recently discussed extensively in several reviews (McLean, 1996; Quartara and Maggi, 1997, Quartara and Maggi, 1998). The present review therefore focuses on the pharmacology and putative function of tachykinin NK1 receptors in the CNS.
Section snippets
Distribution of tachykinin NK1 receptors in the CNS
The distribution of tachykinin NK1 receptors in the mammalian CNS has been investigated by autoradiography (Dam and Quirion, 1986; Danks et al., 1986; Saffroy et al., 1988), by studying the expression of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) encoding for the receptor (Sivam and Krause, 1992; Aubry et al., 1994; Whitty et al., 1995; Whitty et al., 1997) and by immunohistochemistry (Shigemoto et al., 1993). Basically, the different approaches revealed comparable results and have provided evidence for
Properties of the tachykinin NK1 receptor
The pharmacological criteria to define a tachykinin NK1 receptor originate from the analyses of the rank order of potencies of natural mammalian and non-mammalian tachykinins and their fragments on binding and various bioassays, preferably in vitro, but in some instances also in vivo (Maggi et al., 1987; Regoli et al., 1987, Regoli et al., 1988, Regoli et al., 1989; Regoli and Nantel, 1991; Quartara and Maggi, 1997). The tachykinin NK1 receptor has been cloned from several species including man
Ligands for the tachykinin NK1 receptor
The natural ligand with the highest affinity for the tachykinin NK1 receptor is SP itself. The C-terminal sequence is essential for activity, the minimum length of a fragment with reasonable affinity for the tachykinin NK1 receptor is the C-terminal hexapeptide (see Table 1). As discussed above, neurokinin A and neurokinin B do possess considerable affinity for the tachykinin NK1 receptor as well. Therefore, synthesis of more selective ligands targeting one of the tachykinin receptor subtypes
Non-peptide tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists
The story of non-peptide antagonists for the tachykinin receptors started in 1991, when several different groups almost at the same time reported compounds possessing tachykinin receptor-antagonistic properties (Maggi et al., 1993; Regoli et al., 1994). As this area is under rapid development and a variety of different chemical classes of compounds are involved, such substances may be classified by basic structures. Basically, the first of the antagonists were found by screening of chemical
Species-dependent affinities of tachykinin NK1 antagonists reveal two clusters of compounds
The cloned human and rat tachykinin NK1 receptors show about 95% homology, i.e. 21 out of 407 amino acid residues differ between these two species. The majority of these residues is localized at the C- and N-terminal ends of the receptor protein. When analyzing the transmembrane segments 1–7, only six amino acids differ between these two species. With one exception (266 in transmembrane segment 6, i.e., valine in rat and isoleucine in mouse) the mouse and rat tachykinin NK1 receptor have the
Signal transduction coupling of the tachykinin NK1 receptor
It is well established that the binding of tachykinin receptor agonists is regulated by guanine nucleotides indicating coupling to G-proteins (Guard and Watson, 1991). More recent findings from desoxyribonucleic acid cloning and functional expression experiments of all three tachykinin receptors provide clear evidence for this view (Macdonald and Boyd, 1989; Kwatra et al., 1993; Mochizuki et al., 1994; Macdonald et al., 1996). The stimulation of tachykinin NK1 receptors activates several second
Tachykinin NK1 receptors in the spinal cord and their involvement in nociception
Originally, the newly developed non-peptidic tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists were tested for putative antinociceptive effects as SP has repeatedly been proposed as a `pain transmitter'. However, the situation turned out to be extremely complicated and the efficacy of different tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists as antinociceptive compounds has been found to be poor in some instances. This review does not go into details of this complex issue, but refers to some recent reviews that
Tachykinin NK1 receptor agonists and behaviour
The abundant distribution of tachykinin NK1 receptors in brain is reflected by a wide variety of behavioural changes after central administration of SP or selective tachykinin NK1 receptor agonists. Locomotion, grooming, wet-dog shakes, hind paw tapping, in some instances species related, have been observed after central administration of tachykinin NK1 receptor agonists, probably related to the release of other transmitters such as dopamine, serotonin, or acetylcholine (Elliott and Iversen,
Conclusions from tachykinin NK1 receptor knockout mice
Investigation of behaviour of mice after targeted disruption of the gene for the tachykinin NK1 receptor revealed further insight into putative functions (De et al., 1998). Interestingly, in these mice the behavioural responses to acute nociceptive thermal, mechanical or chemical stimuli (hot plate, tail flick, tail pinch, and writhing test) appear to be normal. A minor effect (30% decrease of the behavioural response to the second phase of the formalin paw test) could be detected. This is in
Behavioural and other central effects of tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists
An even more detailed picture of the putative physiological and pathophysiological roles of the tachykinin NK1 receptor in brain can be obtained from the experiments with tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists. There have been several drawbacks of earlier compounds due to unspecific side effects, poor solubility and poor penetration into the CNS after systemic administration. However, the compounds developed more recently seem to be not only highly specific, but also penetrating the CNS and, as
Basal ganglia-related effects and mechanisms
The basal ganglia represent a brain area where high concentrations of both tachykinins and neurokinin receptors can be detected. As a result, many studies have been performed in this area and attempts were made to relate mechanisms involving tachykinins and tachykinin receptors to extrapyramidal motor diseases such as Parkinson's disease and Chorea Huntington. Interactions between the meso-striatal dopamine system and tachykinins have been observed with a number of interdisciplinary approaches.
Anxiety and depression
Recent studies with non-peptidic tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists suggested a putative anxiolytic effect (Teixeira et al., 1996; File, 1997) although this could not be demonstrated earlier possibly due to the sedative and motor impairing effect of one of the early compounds (Zernig et al., 1992, Zernig et al., 1993; Saria et al., 1993). The recent data are compatible with the anxiogenic profile of centrally administered SP on the elevated plus maze (Elliott and Iversen, 1986). A significant
Emesis
Tachykinins are localized in the brainstem not only of rodents, but also in the ferret in areas that are assumed to be involved in nausea and emesis. Ferrets provide a useful experimental model for studying emesis induced by various agents. As ferrets express the human/guinea pig subtype of tachykinin NK1 receptors, proper compounds with tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonism have been studied in this model (Watson et al., 1995). Centrally acting (+)-2S,3S
Other effects of tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists in brain
Few additional studies provide evidence for discrete functions in brain. Intracerebroventricular injection of RP 67580 attenuates some symptoms of the responses to morphine withdrawal in rats (Maldonado et al., 1993). Furthermore, tachykinin NK1 receptors are involved in stress-induced activation of ascending central pathways in the locus coeruleus (McLean et al., 1993). The involvement of tachykinins in central control of stress responses has been shown with tachykinin NK1 receptor antagonists
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