Endocrine Abstracts

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is a hypothalamic neuropeptide that acts via GnRHR on the pituitary gonadotrope. It is secreted in pulses and acts via GnRHR to activate ERK and Nuclear Factor of Activated T-cells (NFAT), mediating GnRH effects on gonadotropin expression. We monitor their activation by high content imaging (fluorescence staining for ppERK and nuclear translocation of an NFAT1c-EFP reporter) in fixed LbT2 gonadotroph cells. Single cell measures reveal high...

Single cell measurements of signalling proteins typically reveal high cell–cell variability raising questions about how reliably individual cells sense their environment in order to make decisions. Information theoretic approaches can be used to explore such sensing, treating cell signalling pathways as ‘noisy’ communication channels. Mutual information (MI) can be calculated between system inputs and outputs as a statistical measure of the reliability of sensin...

One way in which cells receive information about their environment is through hormones binding to appropriate receptors on their cell surface. Single cell measurements of signalling proteins typically reveal high cell–cell variability raising questions about how reliably individual cells sense their environment in order to make decisions. Information theoretic approaches can be used to explore such sensing, treating cell signalling pathways as ‘noisy’ communicat...

GnRH acts via Gq/11-coupled GPCRs on gonadotropes to control synthesis and secretion of LH and FSH. We use mathematical and statistical approaches as well as automated cell imaging to explore this system. In cells expressing ERK2–GFP and GnRH receptors, GnRH pulses cause rapid and transient nuclear translocation of ERK2–GFP, providing a live-cell readout for ERK activation1. A mathematical model trained against this data predicted greater sensitivity to re...

Background: Due to practical limitations, the diagnosis of hypogonadism is predominantly based on a single measure of reproductive hormones, often with confirmation on a second occasion. Factors associated with reproductive hormone variation include: pulsatile secretion, diurnal rhythm, and food intake, which can affect the accuracy of diagnosis of reproductive disorders. There is limited data quantitatively estimating the variability of reproductive hormone levels over the da...