Influence of Cardiac Glycosides and Prostaglandins on the Physiology of Epithelial Cells

Abstract

Epithelial cells play a major role in animal and human homeostasis because they selectively regulate the exchange of solutes between two given media, such as blood or urine. Cardiac glycosides (CG) are a group of highly toxic compounds whose best therapeutic known effect is on heart, although recent evidence has shown that it exerts a wide range of physiological effects on cells and tissues other than the heart. Prostaglandins, on the other hand, are a group of lipids that produce diverse physiological and pathological effects among which inflammation stands out. In this chapter, we describe that cardiac glycosides modulate key features of epithelial cell physiology, including cell-cell contact junctional complexes, cilliogenesis, and gap junction-mediated intercellular communication (GJIC) in epithelial cells. Prostaglandin PGE2 also modulates GJIC through a different signaling pathway. In addition, we describe that CG induce paracrine release of prostaglandin PGE2, which in turn modulates GJIC by itself.