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It has been reported that clonidine is alpha2-adrenergic agonist, potent new hypotensive drug in human with low dose. The change in blood pressure is implicated in the concentration, release, uptake and metabolism of catecholamine and activity of catecholamine synthesizing enzyme in specific brain areas. Thus the experiment was set up to investigate the effect on the enzyme activity of clonidine alone and that of clonidine pretreated with imipramine or tranylcypromine by measuring activity of the Dopa-forming enzyme, tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and epinephrine forming enzyme, phenylethanolamine-N-methyl transferase (PNMT) in brain and adrenal gland. The TH activity in brainstem and substantia nigra is decreased by intraperitoneally administered clonidine 0.1mg/kg twice a day for 5 days, but increased in the rats pretreated with imipramine 10mg/kg intraperitoneally given 26 hrs and 5 hrs before decaptitation. However the TH activity in all regions of brain is increased in rats pretreated with tranylcypromine 10mg/kg intraperitoneally twice a day for 5 days. The effect of clonidine on TH activity is due to inhibition release of norepinephrine by activation of presynaptic alpha2-adrenoreceptor, axon terminal result in the decrease of TH activity in brain. The increasing of TH activity in brain results in attenuation of the role of clonidine by pretreated with imipramine or tranylcypromine in rats. The activity of PNMT was not significantly affected by clonidine, imipramine and tranylcypromine in adrenal gland.
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