Annali italiani di chirurgia
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The authors discuss the changing role of gastrointestinal endocrinology during the last twenty years starting from the early sixties when techniques such as radioimmunoassay and immunocytochemistry allowed major advances of our knowledge on this field. Using these techniques several regulatory peptides have been identified and the concept of the diffuse neuroendocrine system as a morphofunctional apparatus regulating the majority of physiological activities, was postulated. Therefore gut endocrinology was enclosed as a part of neuroendocrinology and similarly the importance of peptidergic substances in neural physiology was recognized. ⋯ Moreover, new events are now occurring in gut endocrinology since major improvements in molecular biology and genetic engineering can now allow us to sequence and clone DNA strands encoding several regulatory peptides and their precursors. Similarly membrane receptors and intracellular messengers have been characterized elucidating the complex metabolic pathways of neuroendocrine cells. Using advanced molecular biology techniques we can obtain today large amount of different regulatory peptides highly purified that can be employed in the diagnosis and therapy of several diseases.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)