Study of opioid receptors

1 ABSTRACT In this Thesis, we studied properties of μ-, δ-, and κ-opioid receptors in lymphocytes isolated from rat spleen. This splenocytes were exposed to mitogen concanavalin A or opiate morphine and cultivated for 48 hours. Under physiological conditions, level of opioid receptors in immune cells is very low. Due to various factors such as presence of opioids, mitogens, long-term exposition to stress, expression of these receptors can be amplified. In this study we demonstrated, that concanavalin A causes up-regulation of μ-, δ- and κ-opioid receptors in lymphocytes isolated from rat spleen. In control cells no significant signal of μ- or δ-receptors was observed. In contrast, κ-opioid receptors were detected already in control cells. Concanavalin A stimulation caused a 2.4 - fold increase of these receptors. In lymphocytes treated with morphine only μ-opioid receptors were up-regulated, whereas in control cells, there was no signal for these receptor type. δ-opioid receptors were not detected in control or morphine treated cells. κ-opioid receptors were determined in control and also in morphine affected lymphocytes but the amount of these receptors wasn't changed by morphine. Detection of μ-, δ- and κ-opioid receptors using Western blot technique in lymphocytes isolated from rat spleen, that were..