Gene Activity Affected By Steroid Hormones

Posted In: Steroids

As per a research by scientists at the University of Bristol and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), gene activity can be affected via intermittent signaling by steroid hormones.

These findings were published online and appeared in the September 2009 issue of Nature Cell Biology.

It is believed that this finding would have major implications to ascertain how steroids work besides opening novel avenues to new therapies.

From News-Medical.Net:

In this new study, the researchers demonstrate that ultradian hormone stimulation induces the pulsed expression of genes (known as gene pulsing) over the same period, both in cultured cells and in animal models. Initially, the researchers administered corticosterone, a naturally occurring glucocorticoid hormone in rodents, in a pulsed manner to cultured mouse cells and then observed that the levels of newly synthesized RNA from glucocorticoid receptor-regulated genes tracked precisely with the hormone pulses.

The reported research results argue that gene pulsing regulated by glucocorticoid receptors is directly linked to varying levels of gene activity. Professor Stafford Lightman, head of the Henry Wellcome Laboratories for Integrative Neuroscience and Endocrinology, at the University of Bristol, said: “We have previously shown that the hormone cortisol is released in pulses in man as well as rodents. The present results now show that this pattern of hormone release is critical for good health and provides a novel concept for new drug design.”

It is considered by members of the medical fraternity that such studies would help in defining the potential role of ultradian application of glucocorticoid receptor therapy to a significant extent.

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