IMMUNOHISTOCHEMICAL STUDIES ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF BIOLOGICALLY-ACTIVE OLIGOPEPTIDES IN THE RAT CENTRAL NERVOUS-SYSTEM

In recent years, the significance of biologically active polypeptides which are widely distributed has been stressed. The authors studied the distribution of substance P-like immunoreactivities (SPLI), somatostatin-like immunoreactivities (SLI) and met-enkephalin-like immunoreactivities (ELI) using the indirect immunofluorescence technique. The fiber and dot-like appearances of SPLI, SLI and ELI were observed in the dorsal horn, the anterior horn, the reticular formation, the lateral tegmental nucleus, the ventral thalamic nucleus, the mesencephalic central gray, the medial hypothalamus, the amygdaloid nucleus, the accumbens nucleus, the cerebral cortex and so on; namely, not only in the primary sensory system as already reported by others, but also in some parts of areas belonging to the extrapyramidal, the limbic and the hypothalamo-pituitary systems and in the cerebral cortex. The authors discussed functional correlations between these three biologically active polypeptides and between the peptides and monoamines. © 1979, JAPAN SOCIETY OF HISTOCHEMISTRY AND CYTOCHEMISTRY. All rights reserved.