Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
We have read with interest the article by Frossard et al (
) entitled “Both thermal and non-thermal stress protect against caerulein induced pancreatitis and prevent trypsinogen activation in the pancreas”. We have a few comments with regard to the interpretation of the data that were obtained in this experiment.
Previous experimental work by Frossard and others have implicated HSP70 as playing a protective role in caerulein induced acute pancreatitis. In the present study Frossard et al showed that thermal and non-thermal stress induced by injection of the β agonist isoproterenol upregulated HSP70 in the pancreas which is associated with amelioration of subsequently induced caerulein pancreatitis. The authors hypothesise that the protective effects on pancreatitis severity caused by thermal and non-thermal stress may by mediated by HSP70. We believe however that both heat shock stress and non-thermal stress can stimulate several other anti-inflammatory pathways which were not discussed in this study, all of which could be alternative explanations for the observations that were made.
It is widely established that catecholamines, both endogenously released during heat shock stress or by injection of isoproterenol, can influence …