Endocrine Abstracts

Performance enhancing substances enjoy considerable popularity among athletes, particularly if deemed undetectable. Doping with growth hormone has been considered undetectable until recently. Two strategies have been pursued to detect GH doping: Pharmacological endpoints and GH isoform composition.For the former approach the consortium GH 2000/2004 has identified markers of GH action and found a combination of parameters from the IGF-system and collagen ...

The leptin receptor (ObR) exists in multiple isoforms. In humans, there is no mRNA encoding soluble receptor (LBP). We investigated the hypothesis that human LBP can be generated by proteolytic cleavage of membrane anchored leptin receptors (ObRb and ObRa). LBP, of similar size to that previously detected in human serum, was detected in medium of cells transfected with ObRa by HPLC, Immunofluorometric assay, and Ligand mediated immunofluorometric assay, but not by ELISA. The L...

Introduction: We have generated a truncated Growth Hormone Receptor (GHR) fused to the cell membrane by a glycosyl phosphatidylinositol anchor (GHR-GPI). The protein consists of the complete extracellular domain of the GHR, but lacks the intracellular domain, and we predict it would act as a GH antagonist. Aim: To test if partially-purified soluble GHR-GPI could re-insert into CHO cell membranes. Material and methods: Membrane preparations were made from CHO cells stably expre...