Arachidonic Acid Metabolites, Other Inflammatory Mediators and Intestinal Ion Transport

Re: Question for Dr. Barrett (or anyone else who cares to answer)

Kim Barrett

On Fri Dec 11, W.K. MacNaughton wrote
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>Kim, nice review of a complicated topic.  What is known of the role of mast cell-derived proteases in regulating transport? I know that the effect of rat mast cell protease II (RMCP-II) has been tested on epithelial permeability, but effects on ion transport are less clear. Is there, to your knowledge, a physiological role for serine proteases in ion transport, either physiological or pathophysiological?

Wally - thanks for the question.  There is remarkably little known.  As you say, RMPCII appears to induce epithelial sloughing and  therefore has profound effects on permeability.  We tried a few experiments a long time ago looking at the effects of purified human tryptase and chymase on T84 cells and didn't see much, if anything.  But I think it is possible that at least some of these proteases may alter sensitivity to other agonists, which has been described for human proteases on smooth muscle.  But there is not a huge supply of the purified proteases out there to test this in any systematic way.

Hope all is well for you in the frozen north!

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