PHARMACOLOGICAL HEMOGLOBIN REVERSAL - THE IMPORTANCE OF LIPID INTERMEDIARIES AND THE PROPOSED INVOLVEMENT OF THE CAMP AND PHOSPHATIDYLINOSITOL 2ND-MESSENGER SYSTEMS

Humoral and microenvironmental influences have played a major role in recent research into reversing the Hb F to Hb A switch. Early research in this area focused on hormonal influences and showed both thyroid h ormone and prolactin could induce small but statistically significant reversals in hemoglobin phenotype. Recent research has focused on the effect of certain lipids in this process. The current study shows a sy nergy between thyroid hormone and prolactin in inducing a significant switch in adult rat hemoglobin patterns toward the neonatal pattern. F urther, it is hypothesized that this synergy is due to the hormones' e ffect on lipid intermediaries whose effect in turn are proposed to de mediated by the cAMP and phosphatidylinositol second messenger systems .