Adenosine Teaches The Lungs To Cope With Low Levels Of Oxygen

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=63737

(ok... so I think I finally have one that hasn't been posted yet...)

This article is about hypoxia and the possibility of hypoxic preconditioning being used to protect the body from some of the severe effects of hypoxia. This would involve expose to moderately decreased levels of oxygen. Because inflammation is often a response of the body to hypoxia, by preconditioning the body, the inflammtion could be reduced, and the side effects of this would then be decreased. In studies done on mice, the decrease in inflammation was due to adenosine, which is produced by cells exposed to hypoxic preconditioning. Adenosine inactivated a protein (cullin-1) that is required for NF-kappa-B, which is a pro-inflammatory regulator, activation by a process known as deneddylation. This study was done on lung tissue, however, more studies will be done on whether this same mechanism would protect other tissues from the severe effects of hypoxia.