POLYAMINES

Polyamines in a few words…

Polyamines are molecules deriving from the amino acid metabolism and the urea cycle. They are naturally present in all animal, plant and bacterial cells.

They play a major role in many functions of the organism. ?In particular, they are essential for the the central nervous system functions, for cell growth and for cell renewal. Our principal intake comes from foodstuffs and, in certain circumstances, it is sometimes preferable to control that intake.

A research programme on a global scale

For a long time ignored by the scientific and medical community, it was at the end of the 1960s, driven principally by Seymour Cohen, that polyamines started to interest researchers. The first international conference on polyamines was organised at the Collège de France in 1970 by S. Cohen, who was then a United States Science Academy member.

To date, over 80,000 scientific publications and nearly 200 patents have been produced. The number of publications whose central theme is not polyamines but which refer to them is much larger. In France, INSERM has units which specialize in this subject.