Endocrine Abstracts

In order to understand the significance of circadian and ultradian hormonal rhythms in man, both in health and disease, it is essential to be able to obtain multiple samples over extended periods, especially during the hours of sleep. The human automated blood sampling (HABS) system reported by Henley and colleagues can achieve this but is recommended for use in the setting of a clinical investigation unit which is its major drawback. For many diagnostic and scientific questio...

Clinically, glucocorticoids are widely used as a treatment mainly due to their potent anti-inflammatory abilities, however these are associated with several side effects and furthermore some patients go on to develop glucocorticoid resistance. ARID1a mutations have been linked to glucocorticoid resistance and are frequently identified across numerous cancers; therefore it is important to determine the functional role of ARID1a to GR signalling. The ATPase driven SWItch/Sucrose...

Ultradian glucocorticoid (GC) secretion is highly conserved, having been detected in all species studied. The GC corticosterone (CORT) is a ligand for the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), inducing GR recruitment to glucocorticoid responsive elements (GREs) to modulate transcription of GC-target genes. We have previously demonstrated that pulsatile GR recruitment to GREs upstream of the Period1 gene is associated with its pulsatile transcription in rat liver. Similarly th...

Glucocorticoid actions in the brain are mediated by glucocorticoid receptors (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR). MR and GR bind endogenously circulating glucocorticoids, share a hormone response element in DNA, and are co-expressed in neurons of the hippocampus and hypothalamus. This arrangement suggests MR and GR functionally cooperate in the regulation of gene expression though hitherto poorly described mechanisms. This possibility was previously exampled by the demon...

Glucocorticoids act via the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Upon ligand binding, GR translocates to the nucleus and binds directly to glucocorticoid responsive elements (GREs) to regulate transcriptional output. Glucocorticoid secretion increases in response to stress to affect transcriptional output within specific areas of the brain including the hippocampus (HC). Therefore, here we assess changes in genome-wide GR chromatin binding profiles in the rat HC in response to a gluc...