Opiate, cannabinoid, and eicosanoid signaling converges on common intracellular pathways nitric oxide coupling.

Scientific fields as they emerge initially appear to be unrelated to other projects even if they are in a similar area of interest. This is especially true in the case of opiate, cannabinoid, and eicosanoid signaling processes. In this limited speculative review, we attempt to examine aspects of their intracellular cascading signaling systems for their commonalities. We find intracellular calcium mobilization, nuclear factor kappa B involvement, adenylate cyclase activity, and, finally, constitutive nitric oxide release to be converging points for these signaling processes, occurring by separate and distinct receptor-mediated effector systems. Phosphokinase C, mitogen activated protein kinase, and cytosolic phospholipase A2 also represent points of common impact. In this regard, aspirin also appears to be involved in an aspect of this signaling convergence. We conclude that many of the physiological observations regarding the actions of these signaling molecules, for example, immunosuppression, neurotransmission, vasodilation, cellular adherence, and cytotoxicity, can now be understood by considering their converging biochemical cascades.