Endocrine Abstracts

Over 60 generations we have inbred a strain of rats to maximize urine calcium excretion, the most common metabolic abnormality in human stone formers. The rats now excrete 8 - 10 times as much calcium as controls and uniformly form kidney stones. They have been termed genetic hypercalciuric stone forming (GHS) rats. The GHS rats exhibit metabolic abnormalities similar to patients with idiopathic hypercalciuria in that they absorb excessive amounts of intestinal calcium, they f...

Parathyroid hormone (PTH) exerts important metabolic effects on the kidney and is responsible for regulating phosphate transport by proximal tubules and calcium absorption by distal tubules. These effects are mediated by the type 1 PTH receptor (PTH1R), which is prominently expressed in both nephron segments. However, the signaling pathways employed by proximal and distal PTH1Rs differ markedly. Recent work reveals the apparent basis by which PTH receptors signal through cAMP ...

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