The thymus-neuroendocrine axis: physiology, molecular biology, and therapeutic potential of the thymic peptide thymulin

PAULA C. REGGIANI; GUSTAVO R. MOREL; GLORIA M. CÓNSOLE; CLAUDIO G. BARBEITO; SILVIA S. RODRIGUEZ; OSCAR A. BROWN; MARIA JOSE BELLINI; JEAN-MARIE PLÉAU; MIREILLE DARDENNE; RODOLFO G. GOYA

ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES.

BLACKWELL PUBLISHING

Lugar: NEW YORK; Año: 2009 vol. 1153 p. 98 - 106

0077-8923

Thymulin is a thymic hormone exclusively produced by the thymic epithelial cells. It consists of anonapeptide component coupled to the ion zinc, which confers biological activity to the molecule.After its discovery in the early 1970s, thymulin was characterized as a thymic hormone involved inseveral aspects of intrathymic and extrathymic T cell differentiation. Subsequently, it wasdemonstrated that thymulin production and secretion is strongly influenced by the neuroendocrinesystem. Conversely, a growing core of information, to be reviewed here, points to thymulin as ahypophysotropic peptide. In recent years, interest has arisen in the potential use of thymulin as atherapeutic agent. Thymulin was shown to possess anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties in thebrain. Furthermore, an adenoviral vector harboring a synthetic gene for thymulin, stereotaxicallyinjected in the rat brain, achieved a much longer expression than the adenovirally mediated expressionin the brain of other genes, thus suggesting that an anti-inflammatory activity of thymulin preventsthe immune system from destroying virus-transduced brain cells. Other studies suggest that thymulingene therapy may also be a suitable therapeutic strategy to prevent some of the endocrine andmetabolic alterations that typically appear in thymus-deficient animal models. The present articlebriefly reviews the literature on the physiology, molecular biology, and therapeutic potential ofthymulin.