Abstract.
The effect of corticosterone and dexamethasone on the production of growth hormone and prolactin was studied in rat pituitary tumour cells (GH3-cells) in culture. Corticosterone and dexamethasone caused a dose-dependent stimulation of growth hormone synthesis, and the highest concentration (10−6 mol/l) increased growth hormone levels to 250% of controls. This concentration, however, decreased prolactin synthesis to 25% of the control values.
The cytosol fractions from monolayer cultures as well as from tumours of GH3-cells were found to possess receptor molecules for glucocorticoid hormones, having a sedimentation constant close to 8 S in a salt-free buffer and 4 S in the presence of 0.5 mol/l KCL. Isoelectric point of the receptor was 5.8. Scatchard analysis showed one single class of binding sites with high affinity (Kd 2.1 ± 0.4 (sd × 10−9 mol/l). Studies on the steroid specificity revealed that dexamethasone had the highest affinity for the receptor. Corticosterone, cortisol and progesterone had also high affinity, whereas testosterone and oestradiol-17β had no significant affinity for the receptors. After in vivo administration of [3H]dexamethasone to GH3 tumour-bearing rats, radioactivity could be extracted from purified nuclei bound to 4 S macromolecules.
The presence of receptors for glucocorticosteroid hormones in the GH3-cells, suggests that these hormones may alter growth hormone and prolactin production at the anterior pituitary level.
Human chorionic somatomammotropin and growth hormone gene expression in rat pituitary tumour cells is dependent on proximal promoter sequences
