Endocrine Abstracts

Pluripotent mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have the capacity to differentiate into osteoblasts, adipocytes and chondrocytes and are characterised by expression of CD105, CD90 and CD73. CD73 is the enzyme that dephosphorylates AMP to adenosine. The role of adenosine in MSCs is unknown and we have thus investigated whether it plays a role in the differentiation process to osteoblasts.MSCs, obtained from the bone marrow of 10 week old male rats, were expande...

Folliculostellate (FS) cells within the anterior pituitary gland produce cytokines and growth factors which are regulated by molecules produced by neighbouring endocrine cells. There are many factors that could potentially be responsible for this intercellular communication that is mediated via connexins (Cx) and gap-junctions. We thus investigated the effect of co-culturing lactotrophs (MMQ) and FS cells (TtT/GF) on Cx43 expression. Our in vitro model system consists o...