The Effects of Drugs on Protein Synthesis in the Nervous System

Abstract

The effects which drugs have on protein synthesis in the nervous system of experimental animals fall into two general categories: (1) effects similar to those produced in other tissues by drugs which are well known as metabolic inhibitors or antibiotics, and (2) effects produced by drugs which have the nervous system as their probable site of action and which thus may be expected to have specific effects on metabolism in nervous tissue. In the present discussion the effects of metabolic inhibitors, antibiotics, and other, presumably nonspecific, drugs on protein synthesis or turnover in brain and nerve will be described briefly, with examples cited from the literature. Another class of drugs, those which affect a single enzyme system or classes of enzymes, which can be considered to be affecting a portion of the protein of the nervous system, will be discussed in terms of representative studies. Major attention will be given to studies from this laboratory on the responses in nervous tissue to the administration or addition of narcotic analgesic drugs.

The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance and cooperation of her colleagues and co-workers A. Neidle, M. Ratner, N. Williams, and J. Pecoraro in the studies reported from the author’s laboratory.