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Pharmacology of the Adenosine System

  • Chapter
The Pharmacology of Sleep

Part of the book series: Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology ((HEP,volume 116))

Abstract

Adenosine is a nucleoside which consists of the purine base adenine linked to ribose (Fig. 1). It is produced by two main enzymatic reactions involving dephosphorylation of 5′-nucleotidase (EC 3.1.5.5) and alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1) as well as hydrolysis of S-adenosyl-l-homocysteine (SAH) by SAH-hydrolase (3.3.1.1). Adenosine may be formed intracellularly, as a result of a breakdown of cytosolic adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP), or extracellularly from ATP. In nerve tissue, an increase in nerve firing releases both adenosine and ATP, which is then extracellularly degraded to adenosine (Stone et al. 1990).

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Authors
  1. M. Radulovacki
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Sleep Research and Treatment Center, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine M.S. Hershey Medical Center, 500 University Drive, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA

    Anthony Kales M.D. (Professor and Chairman Department of Psychiatry and Director) (Professor and Chairman Department of Psychiatry and Director)

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Radulovacki, M. (1995). Pharmacology of the Adenosine System. In: Kales, A. (eds) The Pharmacology of Sleep. Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, vol 116. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57836-6_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-57836-6_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-63372-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-57836-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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