Endocrine Abstracts

Technical advances frequently lead to surprises. Studies of gene expression have used reporter genes since the 1980s to assess how mammalian gene promoters are activated or repressed. Two of the most widely used reporters are firefly luciferase and green fluorescent protein, and both have the advantage that their expression can be seen, and their bioluminescence or fluorescence readily measured. In studying how hormone genes were controlled in the pituitary, we used quantitati...