Endocrine Abstracts

Follistatin like 3 (FSTL-3) is an endogenous inhibitor that binds and inhibits TGFβ family ligands such as activin, myostatin and GDF11. Activin plays crucial roles in development, cellular proliferation and apoptosis while myostatin is a known blocker of muscle growth. To identify physiological roles of FSTL3, FSTL3 gene deletion mice (FSTL3 KO) were generated which displayed altered glucose and lipid metabolism phenotypes. To address the role of FSTL3 in cellular biolog...

Male problems such as oligospermia, azoospermia among others, affect around 30% of infertile couples. Male fecundity relies on the production of large numbers of spermatozoa which is dependent on the number of Sertoli cells. Activin and related TGFβ family ligands regulate testicular development and function. Follistatin Like-3 (FSTL3) is a glycoprotein that binds and inhibits activin. FSTL3 deletion in mice leads to increased adult testicular size with concurrent increas...

Male problems such as oligospermia, azoospermia among others, affect around 30% of infertile couples. Male fecundity relies on the production of large numbers of spermatozoa which is dependent on the number of Sertoli cells. Activin and related TGFβ family ligands regulate testicular development and function. Follistatin Like-3 (FSTL3) is a glycoprotein that binds and inhibits activin. FSTL3 deletion in mice leads to increased adult testicular size with concurrent increas...

Loss of muscle mass is associated with ageing and several degenerative pathological conditions which limit movement and critically impair quality of life. One key regulator of muscle mass is myostatin which inhibits muscle growth. In circulation, myostatin is bound to follistatin-like 3 (FSTL3) in an inactive complex. FSTL3 is a natural, soluble regulator of myostatin along with follistatin (FST) and myostatin propeptide. In the FSTL3 gene deleted mouse (FSTL3 KO), however, to...

Equine chorionic gonadotrophin (eCG) is not only essential for the maintenance of early equine pregnancy but is also used therapeutically for synchronisation of farm and laboratory animals. Currently it is extracted from serum of farmed pregnant mares. We have recently reported that under normoxic conditions, BMP4 treatment of equine trophoblast resulted in a dose, and developmental stage-dependent increase in total number of differentiated binucleate cells that secrete eCG. O...

Follistatin-like 3 (FSTL3) is an endogenous glycoprotein inhibitor of transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) ligands such as activin. TGFβ ligands are integral to key cellular processes such as proliferation, development and differentiation, including angiogenesis. It is not clear, however, how FSTL3 and activin action affect tissue and organ functions in health and disease. We have identified a group of activin-responsive genes that have an expression pattern clos...

Objective: Chorionic gonadotrophin (CG) is a hormone induced during terminal differentiation of trophoblast cells that significantly influences pregnancy outcome. The TGFβ superfamily SMAD2/3 pathway regulates placental function but the activity of the alternative pathway through SMAD1/5/8 in the placenta is unknown. This study investigated the role of BMP4 signalling through SMAD1/5 in terminal differentiation of primary chorionic gonadotrophin-secreting trophoblast cell...

The bioavailability of activin, GDF11, and myostatin, members of the TGFβ superfamily, is regulated by the soluble antagonists follistatin (FST) and follistatin like-3 (FSTL3). Activin influences tissue fate determination and organogenesis in embryos as well as organ homeostasis in adults while myostatin decreases muscle mass in adults and GDF11 regulates pancreatic β-cell differentiation. In addition, the FST gene produces three protein forms (FST288, FST303, and FS...