Endocrine Abstracts

Background: During fetal development, the heart switches substrate preference from glucose to fatty acids, such that in the adult heart, 50–70% of ATP is derived from fatty acid oxidation. What triggers this switch is currently unclear. In vivo, the late gestation rise in glucocorticoid levels is essential for structural and functional maturation of the fetal heart. Glucocorticoid treatment of fetal cardiomyocytes induces express...

Background: During fetal development, the heart switches substrate preference from glucose to fatty acids, such that in the adult heart, 50–70% of ATP is derived from fatty acid oxidation. What triggers this switch is currently unclear. In vivo, the late gestation rise in glucocorticoid levels is essential for structural and functional maturation of the fetal heart. Glucocorticoid treatment of fetal cardiomyocytes induces express...

Synthetic glucocorticoids are administered to pregnant women at risk of pre-term delivery to mature organs and improve neonatal survival. We have shown that glucocorticoid action is essential to mature the fetal heart. Here, we tested the hypotheses that antenatal glucocorticoid exposure, prior to the normal increase in glucocorticoid levels, will advance fetal heart maturation and this will depend on cardiovascular glucocorticoid receptor (GR).Male SMGR...

Glucocorticoids are routinely administered to pregnant women at risk of pre-term delivery to mature foetal organs and improve neonatal survival. Previous work in glucocorticoid receptor (GR)-deficient mice showed that GR activation is essential for maturation of the foetal heart. Here, we tested the hypotheses that i) antenatal glucocorticoid exposure, prior to the normal increase in glucocorticoid levels, will advance foetal heart maturation and ii) this would depend on mater...

Specific variations in the human glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene associate with increased cardiovascular disease risk. GR signalling is essential for cardiac maturation in utero and adult mice with cardiomyocyte and vascular smooth muscle deletion of GR (SMGRKO mice) have cardiac hypertrophy, fibrosis and impaired function. Intriguingly, levels of left ventricle (LV) mRNA encoding the mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), which is pro-fibrotic in heart, rise postnatally ...