SALIVARY GLAND SECRETORY MECHANISMS DURING NORMAL AND ALTERED FUNCTIONAL STATES

口腔的健康是由唾液分泌物维持的。 我们 过去的研究集中在了解唾液形成的机制上， 及其在病理过程中的变化。 在本报告 在此期间，我们继续努力利用基因转移技术， 以改变唾液上皮细胞的表型行为。 具体来说，我们一直在努力纠正唾液损伤 患者的唾液腺暴露于辐射中， 头颈癌的治疗 我们已经扩展到体外 研究结果表明， 水通道蛋白-1对照射大鼠唾液腺的影响可导致 液体分泌接近正常水平。 第二，我们还扩大了 转基因产物的系统分泌的研究 唾液腺上皮细胞 我们发现， 重组腺病毒编码人生长激素分泌治疗剂 成年大鼠的功能激素水平。 我们还证明了 向大鼠唾液腺施用重组腺病毒 不会导致显著的全身毒性。

The health of the oral cavity is maintained by salivary secretions. Our past studies have focused on understanding mechanisms of saliva formation and their alteration during pathologic processes. During this reporting period we have continued our efforts to utilize gene transfer technology to alter the phenotypic behavior of salivary epithelial cells. Specifically, we have continued efforts to correct the salivary damage suffered by patients whose salivary glands are exposed to radiation during treatment for head and neck cancer. We have extended past in vitro findings and shown that delivery of a recombinant adenovirus encoding aquaporin-1 to irradiated salivary glands in rats can lead to increased fluid secretion to near normal levels. Secondly, we have also extended studies on the systemic secretion of transgene products from transduced salivary epithelial cells. We showed that glands infected with a recombinant adenovirus encoding human growth hormone secrete therapeutic levels of functional hormone in adult rats. We also have demonstrated that administration of recombinant adenoviruses to rat salivary glands does not result in significant systemic toxicity.