Pituitary Stalk Interruption Syndrome: From Clinical Findings to Pathogenesis.

Pituitary stalk interruption syndrome (PSIS) is a rare congenital defect manifesting with varying degrees of pituitary hormone deficiency. The signs and symptoms of PSIS during the neonatal period and infancy are often overlooked and therefore diagnosis is delayed. The typical manifestations of PSIS can be detected by magnetic resonance imaging. Several genes in the Wnt, Notch and Shh signalling pathways related to hypothalamic-pituitary development, such as PIT1, PROP1, LHX3/LHX4, PROKR2, OTX2, TGIF and HESX1, have been found to be associated with PSIS. Nevertheless, the aetiology in the majority of cases still remains unknown. In the present review, we provide an overview of clinical features of PSIS and summarise our current understanding of the underlying pathogenic mechanisms for this rare syndrome. Furthermore, we propose future research directions that may help our understanding of the aetiology of PSIS.

Life and death of human vascular endothelial cells by stimulation with free fatty acids through death receptors.

Diabetic individuals may have elevated levels of serum free fatty acids and may exhibit injury to the vascular endothelial cells. This study was undertaken to determine the relationship between various free fatty acids (FFAs) and vascular endothelial cell injury and the molecular mechanisms linking FFA-induced vascular endothelial cells injury or protection. We observed the survival of HUVECs exposed to different FFAs, and our results revealed that the effects of various FFAs on the cell survival of HUVECs were significantly different. Palmitic acid (PA) markedly decreased the HUVEC survival rate in a time- and dose-dependent manner, but arachidonic acid (AA) significantly increased the cell survival rate and could partially prevent cellular apoptosis induced by PA. Interestingly, PA and AA could activate the same target receptor, TNF-R1. PA induced the apoptosis of HUVECs by initiating the death pathway (TNF-R1/TRADD/caspases 8 pathway), whereas AA enhanced cell survival to protect vascular endothelial cells by activating the survival pathway (TNF-R1/RIP/NF-κB 50/NF-κB 65).

Diffuse large cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma with pituitary and bilateral adrenal involvement.

We describe an elderly male patient who presented with fever of unknown origin and refractory hyponatraemia. Following (18) fluorine-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography scan and core adrenal biopsy, the diagnosis of diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma with pituitary and bilateral adrenal involvement was confirmed. After chemotherapy, his symptoms resolved, and all the lesions shrank significantly.

The single-macro domain protein LRP16 is an essential cofactor of androgen receptor.

LRP16 is a special member of the macro domain superfamily, containing only a stand-alone macro domain functional module. Previous study demonstrated that the estrogenically regulated LRP16 cooperates with the estrogen receptor alpha and enhances the receptor's transcriptional activity in an estrogen-dependent manner. Here, we discovered that LRP16 binds to androgen receptor (AR) via its macro domain and amplifies the transactivation function of AR in response to androgen. Similarly, we also discovered that LRP16 acts as a potential coactivator to amplify the transactivation of at least other four nuclear receptors (NRs). Importantly, we show that the single macro domain in LRP16 can serve as the AR coactivator. RNA interference knockdown of LRP16 leads to impaired AR function and greatly attenuates the coactivation of AR by other AR coactivators such as ART-27 and steroid receptor coactivator-1. This interference also markedly inhibits the androgen-stimulated proliferation of androgen-sensitive LNCaP prostate cancer cells. However, LRP16 knockdown did not significantly affect the growth rate of AR-negative PC-3 prostate cancer cells. Furthermore, we observed the induction effect of LRP16 expression by androgen and established a feedforward mechanism that activated AR transactivation. Our results suggest that the macro domain protein LRP16 represents a novel type of cofactor of NR. They also indicate that LRP16 plays an essential role in AR transactivation.

Estrogenically regulated LRP16 interacts with estrogen receptor alpha and enhances the receptor's transcriptional activity.

Previous studies have shown that leukemia related protein 16 (LRP16) is estrogenically regulated and that it can stimulate the proliferation of MCF-7 breast cancer cells, but there are no data on the mechanism of this pathway. Here, we demonstrate that the LRP16 expression is estrogen dependent in several epithelium-derived tumor cells. In addition, the suppression of the endogenous LRP16 in estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha)-positive MCF-7 cells not only inhibits cells growth, but also significantly attenuates the cell line's estrogen-responsive proliferation ability. However, ectopic expression of LRP16 in ERalpha-negative MDA-MB-231 cells has no effect on proliferation. These data suggest the involvement of LRP16 in estrogen signaling. We also provide novel evidence by both ectopic expression and small interfering RNA knockdown approaches that LRP16 enhances ERalpha-mediated transcription activity. In stably LRP16-inhibitory MCF-7 cells, the estrogen-induced upregulation of several well-known ERalpha target genes including cyclin D1 and c-myc is obviously impaired. Results from glutathione S-transferase pull-down and coimmunoprecipitation assays revealed that LRP16 physically interacts with ERalpha in a manner that is estrogen independent but is enhanced by estrogen. Furthermore, a mammalian two-hybrid assay indicated that the binding region of LRP16 localizes to the A/B activation function 1 domain of ERalpha. Taken together, these results present new data supporting a role for estrogenically regulated LRP16 as an ERalpha coactivator, providing a positive feedback regulatory loop for ERalpha signal transduction.

Mechanism of transcriptional regulation of LRP16 gene expression by 17-beta estradiol in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells.

LRP16 gene expression is induced by 17-betaestradiol (E2) via estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) in MCF-7 human breast cancer cells. A previous study also demonstrated that ectopic expression of LRP16 gene promoted MCF-7 cell proliferation. To explore the mechanism of hormone-induced LRP16 gene expression, the LRP16 gene promoter region (-2600 to -24 bp upstream of the LRP16 gene translation starting site) was analyzed in the present study by using different 5'-truncated constructs, and a luciferase reporter. The 5'-flanking sequence of -676 to -24 bp (pGL3-S5) was found to be E2-responsive. After exchange of the fragment from -213 to -24 bp with the TK gene proximal promoter region in pGL3-S5, E2 still induced reporter gene activity in MCF-7 and HeLa cells. Sequence analysis showed that the pGL3-S6 (-676 to -214) sequence contains two motifs that may contribute to E2-induced transactivation; namely, an estrogen-responsive element (ERE) half-site/Sp1 at -246 to -227 bp and an E-box site at -225 to -219 bp. Further deletion and mutation analysis of these two motifs indicated that both the 1/2 ERE and Sp1 binding sites were required for E2 action, while E-box deletion did not affect the luciferase activity in MCF-7 and HeLa cells. The results of gel mobility shift and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays confirmed that both ERalphaand Sp1 were required for hormone-induced transactivation, which involved both ERalphaand Sp1 directly binding to DNA. Taken together, these findings suggest that ERalphaand Sp1 play a role in activation of the human LRP16 gene promoter.

Up-regulation of LRP16 mRNA by 17beta-estradiol through activation of estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha), but not ERbeta, and promotion of human breast cancer MCF-7 cell proliferation: a preliminary report.

LRP16 is a novel gene cloned from lymphocytic cells, and its function is not known. The expression level of LRP16 mRNA was up-regulated by estrogen in breast cancer MCF-7 cells based on the computed aided serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) analysis. In this study, we investigate the effect of 17beta-estradiol (17beta-E(2)) on the expression of LRP16 mRNA and the effects of overexpression of LRP16 on the proliferation of cultured MCF-7 cells and the possible mechanisms involved. The expression level of LRP16 mRNA induced by 17beta-E(2) was determined by Northern blot analysis. LRP16 promoter-controlled luciferase expression vector (pGL3-S(0)) was co-transfected with various nuclear receptors, including estrogen receptor alpha and beta (ERalpha and ERbeta), glucocorticoid receptor alpha (GRalpha), androgen receptor (AR) and peroxisome-proliferator activated receptor gamma and alpha (PPARgamma and PPARgamma) into COS-7 cells, and the relative luciferase activity was measured using Dual-luciferase report assay systems. The effect of overexpression of LRP16 on MCF-7 proliferation was examined by the Trypan Blue exclusion method, and the cell cycle was analyzed by flow cytometry. The expression levels of cyclin E, p53 and p21(WAF1/CIP1) proteins were determined by Western blot analysis. The results showed (1) 17beta-E(2) induced a five- to eightfold increase in LRP16 mRNA levels in MCF-7 cells; (2) the relative luciferase activities in the COS-7 cells co-transfected by pGL3-S(0) and ERalpha or AR were 7.8-fold and 11-fold respectively of those in the control cells transfected by pGL3-S(0) alone; (3) overexpression of LRP16 stimulated MCF-7 cell proliferation, and the numbers of cells in the S-phase of the cell cycle in cells transfected with LRP16 increased about 10% compared with the control cells; and (4) cyclin E levels were much higher in cells with overexpression of LRP16 than in the control cells, while the expression levels of p53 and p21(WAF1/CIP1) were not different between the two groups of cells. From these results we concluded that estrogen up-regulates the expression level of LRP16 mRNA through activation of ERalpha and that overexpression of LRP16 promotes MCF-7 cell proliferation probably by increasing cyclin E.