Endocrine Abstracts

In target tissues, CNP acts via the cell surface guanylyl cyclase B (GC-B) receptor to stimulate cGMP accumulation. Transgenic mice studies deleting either CNP or the GC-B receptor suggest a role for CNP in regulating bone formation and pituitary growth hormone secretion. Our previous studies have implicated a role for CNP in inhibiting calcium transients in alphaT3-1 pituitary gonadotroph cells; however the biological consequence of cGMP accumulation remains unclear. Therefor...

The ubiquitous transcription factor, CREB, is responsible for mediating gene transcription in many endocrine tissues. Recent studies reveal that the activation of several signalling pathways can lead to the phosphorylation of CREB at Ser133, including PKC, MAPKs, CaMKs, and PI3K. In the pituitary gonadotroph, there are consensus cAMP response elements (CREs) in several of the gonadotrophin subunit promoters as well as in the GnRH receptor promoter. We have previously shown tha...