Endocrine Abstracts

Colocalisation of hormones has been demonstrated for growth hormone (GH) and prolactin in the normal adult human pituitary, and for many other hormones in pituitary adenomas. We have investigated whether colocalisation of GH and other hormones occurs earlier, during onto-genesis. Pituitaries from therapeutically aborted male human fetuses of 15–20 weeks gestational age (with ethical approval) were fixed by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde and divided in halves, one o...

Colocalisation of hormones in the adult human pituitary has been demonstrated only for growth hormone (GH) and prolactin (PL) and only for adenomatous tissue. We have investigated whether colocalization occurs earlier in ontogenesis. Pituitaries from male human fetuses of 16–22 weeks gestational age fixed by immersion in 4% buffered formaldehyde and embedded in LR Gold were processed for immunocytochemical double labelling with GH/FSH or GH/LH anti-rat and anti-human prim...

Hypogonadism is difficult to confirm with standard assays. A large proportion of testosterone (T) is bound to sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and is biologically inert. Accurate measures of free and biological-available-testosterone (Bio-T) are largely unavailable. In this study we compared formulae calculated from the total testosterone (TT) and SHBG in their ability to predict hypogonadism and/or Bio-T.TT and SHBG were determined by ELISA and Bio-T...

Immunoneutralisation and antisense studies have shown that the acute regulatory actions of glucocorticoids (GCs) on the secretion of corticotrophin (ACTH) from the anterior pituitary gland are dependent upon the 37 kDa protein, annexin 1 (Anxa1 [1]), which is localised mainly to the S100-positive folliculo-stellate (FS) cells that lie in close apposition with the endocrine cells. The aim of this study was to examine pituitary function in male and female mice lacking the Anxa1 ...

Our previous studies have shown that the acute regulatory actions of glucocorticoids (GCs) on the secretion of corticotrophin (ACTH) are dependent upon the translocation of a 37 kDa protein, annexin 1 (ANXA1 [1]) from within the cell to the outer cell surface where it is retained by a Ca2+-dependent mechanism (2). The mechanisms by which ANXA1 is exported from pituitary cells in response to a steroid challenge and acts on the endocrine cells to suppress peptide rele...

Interferon alpha (IFNα) and Ribavirin combination therapy effectively eradicates Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in up to 80% of patients. Transient thyroid dysfunction (TD) (>80% hypothyroidism) usually due to a destructive thyroiditis has been recognised to occur in up to 25% of patients treated in Italy, Japan and Australia. However, data are lacking in a UK cohort and no standardised protocol for testing of thyroid function testing exists. The aim of this study was to det...