Utilization of cell systems

Abstract

Macroscopic observations at organism level provide with crucial information about the impact of different hormonal systems in organism homeostasis and wellbeing and how they can be altered during certain experimental manipulations. However they do not readily provide with information about the events taking place inside endocrine cells that lead to the observed hormonal responses. Unravelling the intracellular events underlying the physiology of these systems at molecular and genetic level is of outmost importance in order to understand the pathogenesis of endocrine disorders and to device improved treatments. To this end, cultured endocrine cells provide with a direct and efficient tool that enables to dissect the intracellular pathways and genetic events triggered by and leading to certain hormonal stimuli. During this talk it will be shown how data derived from pituitary cells in primary cell culture or as immortalized cell lines provided with insights in the transcriptional regulation of pituitary (pre)hormone synthesis in response to organism and environmental stimuli; highlighted the importance of certain pathways in the regulation of cell growth and helped to identify dysregulations that may contribute to aberrant pituitary cell growth and underlie pituitary tumorigenesis; illuminated the cell specific mode of action of biologicals and triggered the development of therapeutic schemes able to amplify their therapeutic potential.