Endocrine Abstracts

A current challenge in physiology/pathology is translating cell-transduction processes identified in vitro into the living organism, especially where cell-cell interaction and dynamics have key functional roles. The pituitary gland, regulating a diverse range of essential physiological functions, exemplifies this challenge: stimulation from the brain is relayed as variable hormone pulses (the hypothalamic-pituitary (HP) system), which are decoded by peripheral organs ...

Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) is synthesized in hypothalamic neurons and regulates the secretion of growth hormone (GH) from the pituitary gland. GHRH also displays extra-pituitary activities in a variety of cells and organs expressing both GHRH, GHRH receptor (GHRH-R) and its splice variants (SVs). These include, among others, the retina, pancreas, kidney, skeletal muscle and heart. In the heart, we have demonstrated that GHRH(1-44)NH2 exerts survival and antihypert...

Throughout evolution survival of humanity has relied on the ability to cope with stress, such as fasting, exercise, injury and inflammation. In general these conditions generate a metabolic stress response with release of stress hormones (adrenaline, glucagon, cortisol and growth hormone(GH)) and mobilisation of all major fuel sources - lipids, protein and carbohydrate. In addition bacterial ingredients (eg endotoxin/lipopolysaccharide (LPS)) and cytokines (TNF-alfa, interleuk...