Endocrine Abstracts

The human adrenal cortex can be divided into distinct zones that have both morphologic and biochemical differences. The production of aldosterone in the zona glomerulosa can be traced to the zone-specific expression of the enzymes involved in steroid biosynthesis. This is particularly true for its expression of the enzyme aldosterone synthase (CYP11B2). For aldosterone biosynthesis, CYP11B2 expression has often been called the ‘late rate-limiting’ step. We and others...

Aldosterone (aldo) concentrations in the brain and heart are slightly lower, but parallel those in the plasma. Plasma, heart and urine aldosterone continue to be detected in very small amounts in adrenalectomized (ADX) rats, however the concentrations of aldosterone in the brain, though very low, are higher than plasma levels in ADX rats. StAR protein and all of the steroidogenic enzymes necessary for the synthesis of aldosterone are expressed in the central nervous system (CN...

The inhibition of aldosterone activity is a significant approach for preventing the progression of cardiovascular diseases in hypertensive patients. We hypothesized that N-type calcium channels might regulate aldosterone biosynthesis and firstly examined in vivo studies using rats. We investigated the effects of cilnidipine, an L-/N-type calcium channel blocker (CCB), and nifedipine, an L-type CCB, on aldosterone levels and found that only cilinidipine significantly red...