Endocrine Abstracts

Action and metabolism of thyroid hormone are intracellular events which require the transport of iodothyronines across the plasma membrane through transporters. In recent years, several transporters have been identified which are capable of transporting thyroid hormone. They are members of different transporter families, including organic anion transporting polypeptides (OATPs) family, heterodimeric amino acid transporters (HATs), and monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). In pa...

Bisphosphonates are the mainstay of treatment for metabolic bone diseases such as post-menopausal osteoporosis and Paget’s disease. Enormous progress has been made over the last few years in understanding how these drugs act at the molecular level. After targeting bone and selective internalisation by osteoclasts, simple bisphosphonates are incorporated into cytotoxic, non-hydrolysable analogues of ATP. By contrast, the more potent nitrogen-containing bisphosphonates inhi...

Thyroid disorders are common among women of childbearing years. However, the diagnosis of thyroid disorders during pregnancy is confounded by the normal alteration in thyroid physiology. Serum TSH levels decrease at the end of the first trimester, mirroring the increase in serum hCG levels; hCG is thyrotropic and causes a slight increase in serum free T4 concentrations. With the drop in serum hCG as pregnancy progresses, serum free T4 levels decline and may decrease below the ...

Covalent modifications offer an efficient and fast means to modulate protein function. They play a key role in the regulation of steroid receptor-dependent transcription by remodeling the chromatin structural proteins. Steroid receptor coregulator proteins, coactivators and corepressors, which function as signaling intermediates between receptors and chromatin or transcription machinery, often possess or recruit activities that catalyze covalent lysine modifications, such as a...

The purpose of our study was to establish an assay for the measurement of aldosterone in saliva which utilises a simple, non-invasive sampling technique on an out-patient basis. For this we have developed a non-isotopic, time-resolved fluorescence immunoassay. The assay only requires a volume of 100 μl for each duplicate value obtained and involves an overnight incubation after extraction of samples. Cross-reactivity with potentially interfering steroids is below 0.01%. T...

Kenneth S Korach, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA AbstractKenneth S Korach is the Program Director of the Environmental Disease and Medicine Program, Chief of the Laboratory of Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology at the National Institute of Environmental Health...

Kenneth S Korach, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA AbstractKenneth S Korach is the Program Director of the Environmental Disease and Medicine Program, Chief of the Laboratory of Reproductive and Developmental Toxicology at the National Institute of Environmental Health...

Anti-mullerian hormone (AMH), is a member of the TGFbeta family of growth and differentiation factors. Also known as mullerian inhibiting substance, AMH plays an essential role during male sex differentiation, where it signals the regression of the mullerian ducts.However, in the postnatal female AMH plays an important role in growth and development of ovarian follicles. In both rodents and women, AMH is expressed in primary follicles immediately after t...

Objective: To study the protective effect of grape procyanidins on hydrogen peroxide induced oxidative damage in MC3T3-E1 osteoblast-like cells. Methods: Cultured MC3T3-E1 Osteoblast-like cells were treated with grape procyanidins and 125 micromole per litre hydrogen peroxide for six hours. The levels of apoptosis, mitochondrial transmembrane potential and proliferation were subsequently analyzed by flow cytometry and Bio-Red model 550 instrument. Results: The proliferation le...

The human adrenal H295R cell line expresses ACTH receptors (MC2R). However, it is generally accepted that ACTH treatment of these cells has little effect on steroid secretion and so forskolin is routinely used to mimic the actions of ACTH. It is unclear whether the ACTH receptors on these cells are functional. The present study was designed to investigate signalling pathways in H295R cells and their activation by ACTH.Adrenal H295R cells were cultured in...