Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 1999, 189 (1)

Regular Contributions

The Fragment of Complement 3a Lacking the Primary 9 Amino Acids Induces Promoting Activity on Mouse Voluntary Running

YUTAKA MASUDA, NAOYUKI MIURA,1 MINORU SUZUKI,2 YUSUKE AKAGAWA,2 YOSHIHIKO KAWARADA,1 MASAMI KAWAGOE,1 TOSHIHIRO SUGIYAMA,1 TETSUO SHIMIZU2 and YASUO HISHIKAWA2

Psychosomatic Division, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita 010-8543, 1Department of Biochemistry, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita 010-8543, and 2Department of Neuropsychiatry, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita 010-8543

  • We have newly found that interleukin-2 (IL-2) increases mouse voluntary running 24 hours, but not 30 minutes, after the injection. We suspected that IL-2 induced a substance increasing the voluntary running for 24 hours after injection. Serum obtained from mice 24 hours after the IL-2 treatment was fractioned with the use of an ion-exchanger and an ultra-filtration method, and the amino acid sequence analysis indicated that the substance purified from the effective fraction was a fragment of mouse complement 3a (C3a) lacking the primary 9 amino acids. The 20 amino acid peptide synthesized according to the fragment showed the activity increasing the voluntary running, but the 20 amino acid peptide synthesized according to the C3a itself did not. The effect of the synthesized peptide was demuted by haloperidol but not by a specific dopamine 2 antagonist (-)sulpiride. The present findings clearly indicate that IL-2 produces the C3a fragment lacking the primary 9 amino acids which directly promotes the voluntary running, and that the effect of the fragment is mediated by an activity of haloperidol on the neurons, except for the dopamine 2 antagonism.
    Key words--- interleukin-2; mouse voluntary running; complement 3a; amino acid sequence; haloperidol
    © 1999 Tohoku University Medical Press

    Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 1999, 189, 21-27
    Yutaka Masuda, Psychosomatic Division, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita 010-8543, Japan.

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