The effect of GH-releasing factor(1–44) (GRF) alone, or together with somatostatin (SRIF), dopamine (DA), vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) or cycloheximide was studied in a total of ten human somatotrophinomas using a static cell culture system. Growth hormone-releasing factor (2·0×10−8 mol/l) significantly (P<0·05) stimulated GH release from nine out of ten tumours over 4-h incubations, and a dose-related effect (2·0×10−10−2·0×10−8 mol/l) was observed in five tumours thus studied.
Repeated GRF (2·0×10−8 mol/l)-mediated GH release was seen during 96% (n = 25) of experiments performed on six tumours over 4 h and up to 27 days in culture. Growth hormone-releasing factor (2·0×10−8 mol/l) also stimulated GH release from five out of seven somatotrophinomas during 60-min incubations.
Somatostatin (6·1×10−9 mol/l) completely inhibited GRF-induced GH secretion from four tumours studied over 4 h, but in each case there was significant (P<0·05) 'rebound' of GH release from cultures exposed to both GRF and SRIF during a subsequent recovery period. Dopamine suppressed basal GH release from two out of four tumours, but in each case had a greater inhibitory effect on GRF-mediated GH release. Vasoactive intestinal peptide directly stimulated GH release from two out of three tumours, and the effects were additive to maximal stimulatory doses of GRF. Cycloheximide significantly (P< 0·01) enhanced GRF-stimulated release of GH during a 60-min incubation, but inhibited both basal and GRF-stimulated release over 4 and 8 h. We conclude that a static cell culture system can be used successfully to study the action of GRF on human somatotrophinoma tissue for up to 27 days in culture. Human somatotrophinomas seem to be only rarely unresponsive to the stimulatory action of GRF, which is itself significantly modulated by SRIF, DA and VIP. De-novo protein synthesis appears to be necessary for the full expression of GRF activity on human somatotrophinoma tissue.
J. Endocr. (1985) 105, 269–276
Journal of Endocrinology is committed to supporting researchers in demonstrating the impact of their articles published in the journal.
The two types of article metrics we measure are (i) more traditional full-text views and pdf downloads, and (ii) Altmetric data, which shows the wider impact of articles in a range of non-traditional sources, such as social media.
More information is on the Reasons to publish page.
Sept 2018 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Full Text Views | 22 | 1 | 1 |
PDF Downloads | 2 | 1 | 1 |