Basic Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Mar 28, 2015; 21(12): 3509-3518
Published online Mar 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i12.3509
Effect of entacapone on colon motility and ion transport in a rat model of Parkinson’s disease
Li-Sheng Li, Chen-Zhe Liu, Jing-Dong Xu, Li-Fei Zheng, Xiao-Yan Feng, Yue Zhang, Jin-Xia Zhu
Li-Sheng Li, Chen-Zhe Liu, Jing-Dong Xu, Li-Fei Zheng, Xiao-Yan Feng, Yue Zhang, Jin-Xia Zhu, Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China
Author contributions: Li LS and Zhu JX designed the study; Li LS and Liu CZ carried out most of the experiments and analyzed the data; Xu JD, Zheng LF, Feng XY and Zhang Y performed the ISC experiments; Li LS and Zhu JX wrote the paper.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China, No. 81270443, No. 81274173 and No. 31300954.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Jin-Xia Zhu, MD, PhD, Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Capital Medical University, No. 10 You An Men Xi Tou Tiao, Beijing 100069, China. zhu_jx@ccmu.edu.cn
Telephone: +86-10-83911831
Received: October 5, 2014
Peer-review started: October 6, 2014
First decision: October 29, 2014
Revised: November 6, 2014
Accepted: December 1, 2014
Article in press: December 1, 2014
Published online: March 28, 2015
Core Tip

Core tip: Entacapone, a catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor, is an emerging drug for Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. However, patients experience gastro-intestinal side effects with entacapone treatment and the reason for this is unknown. This study for the first time proved that COMT is expressed in normal and PD rat colons and that entacapone can inhibit PD rat muscle contraction through the β2 adrenoceptor. It was also discovered that entacapone can induce cAMP-dependent Cl- secretion in PD rats and that endogenous prostaglandin is involved in this process. These findings provided histological evidence of COMT in the colon, establishing an experimental basis for the mechanism of entacapone-induced PD gastro-intestinal side effects.