Abstract
Recently it was shown by Kuruma et al. (1) and Takagi and Kuruma (2) that a single injection of bacterial pyrogenic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into rabbit caused a marked reduction of 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) content in brain stem and spleen, without affecting on the content of noradrenaline and the time course of 5-HT decrease in brain stem is closely correspond with that of rise in rectal temperature. This observation prompted us to study the mechanism of 5-HT release induced by LPS using platelet since it has been shown that the use of platelets is a valuable experimental procedure for study of the 5-HT release mechanism (3). Although 5-HT releasing effect of LPS on platelet has been reported previously by Shimamoto et al. (4, 5), Des Prez (6-8) and Davis el al. (9, 10), its mechanism is remains to be investigated.
