Effects of melatonin on rat Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis and immune function which inhibited by exogenous corticosterone / 中国免疫学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate the effects of exogenous melatonin on Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal(HPA) axis and immune function which inhibited by exogenous corticosterone.Methods:By means of radioimmunoassay and cytoimmunology techniques respectively, we observed the effects of two doses exogenous melatonin on the plasma concentrations of ACTH ,corticosteron0e as well as the variations of lymphocytes proliferating response, natural killer cytotoxicity(NKCC) and the level of IL-2 induced by ConA of rat model which Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis and immune function were inhibited by exogenous corticosterone.Results:After 14 consecutive days melatonin injection(i.p.),there were an increasing trends of plasma concentration of ACTH, corticosterone which inhibited by exogenous corticosterone were observed in the melatonin 100 ?g/kg treated group, but no significance in statistics, otherwise, there were significant increasing of plasma concentration of ACTH, corticosterone were observed in the melatonin 200 ?g/kg treated group( P