We determined whole blood lead and cadmium levels, and serum selenium levels in patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and age- and sex-matched controls. Disability due to the disease directly correlated with lead levels, and there was a strong inverse correlation with selenium concentrations. Lead and selenium concentrations tended to be similar in the cases and controls, both in the study population as a whole and after the removal from the analysis of the patients with the highest degree of disability. In the patients with limited disability, cadmium concentrations were higher than in the controls. Our findings lend limited support to a possible involvement of cadmium, but not lead, in the etiology of sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and strongly suggest that short-term indicators of exposure are inadequate to investigate the relationship between selenium and the disease.

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The addition of corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) to molluscan hemocytes induces the release of biogenic amines (norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine), a phenomenon we have considered as an ancestral type of stress response [( 1992) Gen. Comp. Endocrinol. 87, 3543601. A similar but less significant response was observed following the addition of interleukin-2 (IL-2). Pre-incubation of hemocytes with IL-2 or anti-IL-2 monoclonal antibody significantly reduced or completely eliminated the CRF-induced release of biogenic amines. Further direct evidence of competition between CRF and IL-2 was revealed by immunocytochemical and cytofluorimetric analysis. The data are compatible with the presence of a unique (ancestral?) receptor on molluscan hemocytes, capable of binding both CRF and IL-2, two key molecules of the neuroendocrine and immune system, respectively.

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