School of Medicine researchers have discovered how a key group of steroid hormones known as glucocorticoids produce their anti-inflammatory effects.
Glucocorticoids are prescribed for arthritis, bone marrow and organ transplants, cancer, lupus and other conditions, and they are purchased as over-the-counter creams containing hydrocortisone by people with skin rashes.
Chronic use of the compounds eventually can produce such severe side effects as diabetes, blood disorders, cataracts, glaucoma and hypertension. With the new information, researchers should be able to devise analogue drugs that work similarly, but avoid the dangerous side effects.
Authors of the report, which appeared in the journal Science, are Robert Scheinman, a postdoctoral fellow who completed his work at UNC; research analyst Patricia Cogswell; Alan Lofquist, now at the University of Idaho; and Albert S. Baldwin Jr., associate professor of biology at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
In experiments using the synthetic glucocorticoid DEX, researchers found that the compound blocked activation of the immune system by stimulating production of a substance known as I kappa B, which in turn combined with an immune system regulator called NF kappa B to inhibit it. When I kappa B is absent or in short supply, NF kappa B produces a strong immune system response.
Support for the research came from the National Institutes of Health and the Arthritis Foundation.
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