Endocrine Abstracts

Growth hormone (GH) is involved in body growth and metabolism. This hormone is used for the treatment of various clinical conditions and is administrated subcutaneously once daily or 3 times a week. The chronic use of GH has side effects; among them, the increase in tumor incidence. GH activates pathways related with oncogenesis not only by the activation of its specific receptor, but also by transactivation and regulation of the expression of the epidermal growth factor recep...

Chronically elevated GH levels in GH-transgenic mice derive in accelerated growth and increased body weight. These animals present increased circulating IGF-I and hepatic IGF-I mRNA levels, as well as liver enlargement due to hypertrophy and hyperplasia, which frequently progress to hepatomas as the animals age.We have previously described that the GH-induced JAK2/STAT5 signalling pathway is desensitized in the liver of transgenic mice overexpressing GH....

JAK2/STAT5 is the principal growth hormone (GH) signaling pathway related to body growth. It is positively regulated by glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and hepatocyte nuclear factor 1 (HNF-1) and downregulated by activation of tyrosine-phosphatases SHP-1,-2 and PTP-1B, and by GH-induction of suppressors of cytokine signaling (CIS/SOCS) that block GHR or JAK2, and promote internalization/degradation of signaling complexes. This pathway is desensitized in liver of adult transgenic ...

GH and IGF1 play an important role in cardiac development and function. Conditions leading to abnormal GH levels are associated with cardiovascular disease. Although acromegaly is associated with hypertension, insulin resistance, diabetes type 2 and dislipemia, several studies ascribe the heart alterations displayed by these patients to the direct action of chronically elevated GH and IGF1 levels.Given that insulin acts as a growth factor to the heart an...