Endocrine Abstracts

Epididymis (epi) is a sex steroid-sensitive duct provided with spontaneous motility, allowing sperm transport. We previously demonstrated that human epi expresses a high abundance of mRNA for ER-alpha and ER-beta. We demonstrated that in epi estrogens up-regulate either oxytocin (OT) responsiveness, acting at the receptor level, and responsiveness to endothelin-1 (ET-1), another well-known stimulator of epididymal motility. However, we did not find any significant change eithe...

The contractile RhoA/Rho-kinase (Rock) signalling pathway is up-regulated in penile tissue in animal models of experimental diabetes and has been proposed to contribute to diabetes-related erectile dysfunction (ED). In previous studies we demonstrated that testosterone (T) restores diabetes-induced ED by influencing the NO/cGMP/PDE5 pathway.AimTo investigate the effect of T on the RhoA/Rock signalling in course of diabetes.MethodsWe used two distinct animal models of chemical ...