Detection of Biologically Active Substances by Chemical Reception

淡水腔肠动物水螅在还原型谷胱甘肽刺激下表现出摄食行为。行为反应被沐浴介质中的少量生物活性物质改变。每种物质在不同的刺激条件下观察到这种修饰。首先，我们研究了可重复观察到生物活性物质修饰的培养条件。我们发现孵化介质中的盐成分对改变水螅的反应是重要的，由于水螅行为试验对生物活性肽非常敏感，因此，它有望用于研究生物样品中这些物质，有时这些物质的含量很少。我们发现，TGF-β的活性在大鼠脑脊液（CSF）的疲劳大鼠强迫游泳后。在另一项研究中，我们发现奎宁刺激口腔后，大鼠CSF中的地西泮结合抑制物（DBI）增加。我们可以检测到这些变化的生物活性肽，并确定使用这种水螅响应系统的肽比其他研究方法更容易检测的生物活性肽。这些例子显示了水螅响应在检测少量生物样品中的生物活性物质方面的有用性。目前，我们通过用双目观察水螅的行为来检测水螅响应，并确定响应。一切都是人类的事情。这使得该测定非常难以实施。然后，我们开发了一个计算机辅助系统的测定。我们已经完成了开发必要的计算机程序，从CCD相机获取数字图像，计算图像参数，并分析这些图像参数。

A fresh water coelenterate Hydra shows the feeding behavior after stimulation by reduced glutathione. The behavioral response is modified by a small amount of biologically active substances in the bathing medium. The modification is observed at different stimulatory conditions by each substance. First, we have investigated the cultural conditions under which the modification by biologically active substances is observed reproducibly. We have found salt compositions of the hatching medium, in which prey is hatched, are important for the modification of the hydra response.Since the hydra behavioral test is so sensitive to biologically active peptides, it is expected to be useful for the investigation of these substances in the biological specimens, which sometimes are available only small amount. We found a TGF-beta activity in the rat cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of the fatigued rat after forced swimming. In another study, we found the diazepam binding inhibitor (DBI) increased in the rat CSF after quinine stimulation to the oral cavity. We can detect these changes in the biologically active peptides and identify the peptide using this hydra response system easier than with other investigation methods for the detection of biologically active peptides. These examples show usefulness of the hydra response to examine biologically active substances in the small amount of biological samples.Currently, we examine the hydra response by observing the behavior by a binocular and determine the response. All are human things. This makes the assay to be very difficult to practice. Then we develop a computer-assisted system for the assay. We have completed to develop necessary computer programs to acquire digital images from a CCD camera, to calculate image parameters, and analyze these image parameters.