Stimulation of corticotropin-releasing hormone-mediated adrenocorticotropin secretion by central administration of prolactin-releasing peptide in rats.

Prolactin-releasing peptide (PrRP) is a recently isolated hypothalamic peptide which is an endogenous ligand to an orphan receptor. We previously demonstrated that PrRP neurons are widely distributed throughout the rat brain and suggested that PrRP may have important functions in the central nervous system. To analyze the function of PrRP, we studied the effect of intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) PrRP administration on c-Fos protein accumulation in the rat brain. The results clearly indicated that c-Fos protein accumulation was dramatically increased in the nuclei of corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH)-positive parvocellular neurosecretory cells in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN). We also demonstrated synapse-like contact between PrRP neurons and CRH cell bodies in the PVN, which suggests that PrRP31 has some effect on CRH secretion. We therefore investigated the effect of i.c.v. administration of PrRP31 on the CRH-mediated increase in adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) levels, and found that plasma ACTH levels were indeed increased by i.c.v. PrRP31. In addition, animals pre-treated with intravenous alpha-helical CRH, a potent CRH antagonist, showed attenuated plasma ACTH responses after i.c.v. PrRP31 administration. These results strongly suggest that PrRP affects the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.