The cysteinyl leukotrienes: where do they come from? What are they? Where are they going?

Cysteinyl leukotrienes are established mediators of bronchial asthma and have agonist roles analogous to those of histamine in allergic rhinitis. We now know that the substance originally termed slow-reacting substance of anaphylaxis was composed of three cysteinyl leukotrienes that act in the inflammatory response via receptors on smooth muscle and on bone marrow-derived inflammatory cells. K. Frank Austen describes the work culminating in the identification, biosynthesis and functional characterization of these moieties.