The role of prostaglandins in the control of intestinal motility in physiological and experimental inflammatory states.

许多肠道疾病是由于不明原因的炎症引起的，伴有疼痛、腹泻或便秘。这是如何发生的尚不清楚。肠道的运动是由于肌肉壁的收缩和松弛，这是由神经细胞网络控制的，一种肠道中的大脑。在炎症条件下，生病的肠道会产生大量的化学物质。在这些物质中有前列腺素，它负责增加发炎部位的疼痛。然而，即使在没有炎症的情况下，肠道也会产生前列腺素，尽管目前还不清楚这些物质在正常肠道中的作用。在疾病期间，前列腺素的分泌量要大得多。如果我们能确定它们在正常情况下的作用，我们就能确定它们是如何在疾病中起作用的。因此我们的项目分为两部分。首先，我们将研究前列腺素通常如何影响控制肠道运动的神经和肌肉的工作。在第二部分中，我们将揭示这些物质在一些模拟人类疾病的实验室动物诱导的轻度炎症中的作用。所有的实验都将在这些实验动物被人道杀害后取出的肠道上进行。这使我们能够研究实验诱导的疾病如何影响肠道功能，特别是运动。我们将使用我们实验室最近开发的一种方法，将肠道运动的视频记录转换成计算机生成的地图。从这些图片中，我们可以看到运动的模式，这些模式太微妙了，无法通过观看视频来检测。我们将通过确定前列腺素是否以及何时负责产生疾病中所见的异常肠道运动来结束我们的项目。这将为临床医生开发针对肠道疾病的新药提供更好的基础。

Many intestinal disorders are due to inflammations of unknown origin, associated with pain, diarrhoea or constipation. How this occurs is not known. The movements of the intestine are due to the contractions and relaxations of the muscular wall, which are controlled by a network of nerve cells, a kind of a brain in the gut. In inflammatory conditions, a multitude of chemical substances are produced by the sick gut. Among these substances are the prostaglandins that are responsible for increasing pain from inflamed parts. However, the gut makes prostaglandins even when there is no inflammation, although it is not clear what do these substances do in the normal intestine. During disease, prostaglandins are made in much larger amounts. If we can establish what they do normally we may be able to establish how they work in disease. Therefore our projects is in two parts. First, we will investigate how prostaglandins normally affect the working of the nerves and muscle controlling intestinal movement. In the second part we will reveal the role of these substances during mild inflammation induced in some laboratory animals to mimic human diseases. All experiments will be carried out on intestines removed from these experimental animals after they are killed humanely. This enables us to study how the experimentally induced diseases affect gut function, especially movement. We will use a method, that has recently been developed in our laboratory, to transform video recordings of gut movements into computer-generated maps. From these pictures, we can see patterns of movement that are too subtle to detect by just watching the videos. We will end our project by establishing if and when prostaglandins are responsible for producing the abnormal intestinal movements seen in disease. This will give clinicians a better basis to develop new drugs against gut disorders.