Function and Pharmacology
| PGD2 | Promotion of sleep | TXA2 | Stimulation of platelet aggregation; vasoconstriction |
| PGE2 | Smooth muscle contraction; inducing pain, heat, fever; bronchoconstriction |
15d-PGJ2 | Adipocyte differentiation |
| PGF2α | Uterine contraction | LTB4 | Leukocyte chemotaxis |
| PGI2 | Inhibition of platelet aggregation; vasodilation; embryo implantation |
Cysteinyl-LTs | Anaphylaxis; bronchial smooth muscle contraction. |
Eicosanoids exert complex control over many bodily systems, mainly in inflammation or immunity, and as messengers in the central nervous system. They are found in most living things. In humans, eicosanoids are local hormones that are released by most cells, act on that same cell or nearby cells (i.e., they are autocrine and paracrine mediators), and then are rapidly inactivated.
Eicosanoids have a short half-life, ranging from seconds to minutes. Dietary antioxidants inhibit the generation of some inflammatory eicosanoids, e.g. trans-resveratrol against thromboxane and some leukotrienes. Most eicosanoid receptors are members of the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily; see the Receptors table or the article eicosanoid receptors.
Leukotrienes:
|
Prostanoids:
|
Read more about this topic: Eicosanoid
Famous quotes containing the word function:
“Philosophical questions are not by their nature insoluble. They are, indeed, radically different from scientific questions, because they concern the implications and other interrelations of ideas, not the order of physical events; their answers are interpretations instead of factual reports, and their function is to increase not our knowledge of nature, but our understanding of what we know.”
—Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985)