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The digestive tract is equipped with a diffuse endocrine tissue which synthesizes and releases a variety of peptide hormones. It is also richly innervated by extrinsic and intrinsic neurons which store many neuropeptides and classical neurotransmitters (see Chap. 1). Since the discovery of the first hormone in intestine, i.e., secretin (Bayliss and Starling 1902), the digestive tract has been a major source for the discovery and isolation of new regulatory peptides (McDonald 1991a,b). They have been identified thereafter in many other tissues, in particular the central nervous system, giving rise to the so-called brain-gut axis concept (McDonald 1991a,b). The reverse is also true since peptides initially discovered in brain have been thereafter characterized in the gut. |
