2023-07-31 20:01:45
Cannabinoids control a variety of elementary processes in our body. Virtually the entire body is littered with cannabinoid receptors. A large number of intracellular processes can be modulated via these receptors, depending on which cannabinoid docks there. A basic distinction is made between an agonistic and an antagonistic effect on these receptors.
Here, agonistic means an activating effect and antagonistic means an inhibiting effect. One of the first endogenous cannabinoids to be discovered was anandamide. This is probably the best-known endocannabinoid. Over the years, more and more of the body’s cannabinoids have been discovered, and people have begun to understand just how essential the body’s cannabinoid system is to myriad vital functions. A lesser-known endocannabinoid is virodhamine.
Anandamide antagonist
Anandamide is an agonist at the CB1 receptor. Virodhamine, on the other hand, has an antagonistic effect on the CB1 receptor and an agonistic effect on the CB2 receptor. So it reverses the effect of anandamide. Every process in the human body that is controlled via the endocannabinoid system is regulated in its strength by either agonistic or antagonistic binding to the respective receptors. For example, the intensity of an inflammatory reaction can be controlled via the agonistic or antagonistic effect on the CB2 receptors of the immune cell involved in the process.
But sensations such as happiness or pain relief are also controlled in the same way. Anandamide initially provides happiness or pain relief via its agonistic effects at the CB1 receptors in the brain. If this effect is no longer needed, its opponent virodhamine comes into play, canceling out the effect of anandamide through its antagonistic effect and gradually letting it fade away. Another effect of this cannabinoid is that it is involved in the regulation of blood vessels, primarily those in the lungs. It has a relaxing and expanding effect.
Many cannabinoids act directly on the blood vessels and dilate them, which is also why many get red eyes from smoking cannabis. The exact chemical name of virodhamine is O-arachidonoylethanolamine. It is made in the body from a reaction of arachidonic acid and ethanolamine. Virodhamine is found primarily in the hippocampus, but in principle also in any peripheral tissue. While anandamide was discovered as the first endogenous cannabinoid in 1992, virodhamine has only been known since 2002.
Important function in liver cells
A study at the University Hospital Bonn in 2010 found that virodhamine also plays a central role in liver cells. Virodhamine was found to induce cell death in what are known as hepatic stellate cells. Hepatic stellate cells are abnormal expressions of liver cells that are the starting point of severe liver diseases. The so-called activation of hepatic stellate cells occurs through various toxic influences, such as alcohol, drugs that are toxic to the liver or metabolic products of certain viruses. It is precisely these hepatic stellate cells that Virodhamine kills by triggering intracellular oxidative stress.
The research team isolated liver cells from rats and then used a special staining technique to observe the death of hepatic stellate cells, directly dependent on the concentration of virodhamine present. It can be assumed that this completely unknown cannabinoid plays an important role in keeping the liver healthy. Were it not for this selective eradication of degenerated liver cells, life-threatening liver cirrhosis would develop much more easily. Precisely because of these sophisticated self-healing mechanisms, the liver is one of the body’s regenerative organs. To a certain extent, toxic and inflammatory damage can be repaired in this way.
Potential medical benefit in the future
The research team assumes that due to this very selective eliminating effect on degenerated liver cells, which, however, completely spares healthy cells, virodhamine might play a greater role in medicine in the future. This cannabinoid might be the starting material for the development of new antifibrogenic drugs in the future. Antifibrogenic means that it inhibits fibrosis in the liver.
Fibrosis is the process that leads to liver disease when hepatic stellate cells can no longer be adequately combated by the body. This fibrosis can then result in liver cirrhosis or liver cancer. Once you have understood the process that this cannabinoid carries out here in order to eliminate precisely these degenerated cells, you can use the underlying biochemical process as a template for the development of novel drugs.
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