Cure Alveolar Soft Part Sarcoma International (iCureASPS)

August 21, 2018
‘Gut touch?’ Mayo Clinic researchers discover important trigger for serotonin release

Researchers at Mayo Clinic have discovered an important mechanical trigger in the gut for releasing serotonin in the body. Serotonin is an important hormone and neurotransmitter in the human body, believed to help regulate digestion, appetite, mood, social behavior, sleep and other important functions. The researchers’ findings were published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

“In the gut, a special epithelial cell, called enterochromaffin, produces nearly all of the serotonin in our body,” explains Arthur Beyder, M.D., Ph.D., a gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Beyder says a 60-year-old landmark study showed that mechanical forces in the gut, such as those present during digestion, serve as a trigger for serotonin release. However, the exact mechanism for how that release took place was unclear. “Because serotonin released by the enterochromaffin cells has many important functions in the body, we wanted to better understand how these cells work.”

A population of gut epithelial enterochromaffin cells is mechanosensitive and requires Piezo2 to convert force into serotonin

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/07/17/1804938115

In their research, Dr. Beyder and his colleagues discovered that a mechanosensor, called Piezo2, was specific to enterochromaffin cells. A mechanosensor is a molecule that responds to changes in mechanical force and leads to a physiologic response. “We found that a mechanosensitive ion channel called Piezo2 is in an important mechanosensor necessary for mechanical release of serotonin from the enterochromaffin cell,” says Dr. Beyder.

Study Identifies a Novel Mechanism by Which Cells May Detect a Variety of Sensations

The results of a new study build on earlier NCCIH-funded research on the Piezo2 protein (encoded for by the Piezo2 gene), which is involved in detecting touch and other sensations. The new study shows that the gene guides the production of different forms of the protein, which may play roles in distinguishing sensations such as gentle touch, stretching, vibration, and pain. These findings indicate that touch detection is regulated at the molecular level to produce distinct responses in different types of cells. The study, funded jointly by NCCIH and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), was published in Cell Reports.

https://nccih.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/piezo2


Continued from -Re: Gut touch?’ Mayo Clinic researchers discover important trigger for serotonin release-

“We know that serotonin produced by the enterochromaffin cell is important for many local functions in the gut and the body and that serotonin signaling is disrupted in many human diseases, so we want to understand how the enterochromaffin cell works, and how it may be broken in human diseases,” says Dr. Beyder. “This knowledge could one day lead to completely novel approaches to diagnose and treat human diseases.”

Serotonin and cancer: what is the link?


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25601469/

Abstract
Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) is a biogenic monoamine that acts as a neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, local mediator in the gut and vasoactive agent in the blood. Serotonin exerts its multiple, sometimes opposing actions through interaction with a multiplicity of receptors coupled to various signalling pathways. In addition to its well-known functions, serotonin has been shown to be a mitogenic factor for a wide range of normal and tumoral cells. Serotonin exhibits a growth stimulatory effect in aggressive cancers and carcinoids more often through 5- HT1 and 5-HT2 receptors. In contrast, low doses of serotonin can inhibit tumour growth via the decrease of blood supply to the tumour, suggesting that the role of serotonin on tumour growth is concentration-dependent. Data are also available on serotonin involvement in cancer cell migration, metastatic processes and as a mediator of angiogenesis. Moreover, the progression of some tumours is accompanied by a dysregulation of the pattern of serotonin receptor expressions. Serum serotonin level was found to be suitable for prognosis evaluation of urothelial carcinoma in the urinary bladder, adenocarcinoma of the prostate and renal cell carcinoma. In some cases, antagonists of serotonin receptors, inhibitors of selective serotonin transporter and of serotonin synthesis have been successfully used to prevent cancer cell growth. This review revaluates serotonin involvement in several types of cancer and at different stages of their progression.

Abstract

The adult intestine hosts a myriad of diverse bacterial species that reside mostly in the lower gut maintaining a symbiosis with the human habitat. In the current review, we describe the neoteric advancement in our comprehension of how the gut microbiota communicates with the skin as one of the main regulators in the gut-skin axis. We attempted to explore how this potential link affects skin differentiation and keratinization, its influence on modulating the cutaneous immune response in various diseases, and finally how to take advantage of this communication in the control of different skin conditions.

Keywords: gut microbiome, skin homeostasis, acne vulgaris, atopic dermatitis, psoriasis, probiotics

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6048199/