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

Funded Activity Summary

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.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2000

End Date: 01-01-2002

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $316,209.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Medical bacteriology

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

animal model | bacterial toxins | diarrhoea | enteric nervous system | experimental colitis | inflammatory bowel diseases | intestinal motor patterns | prostaglandins | video image analysis

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