High-fat (HFD) and high-sucrose diets (HSD) reduce insulin suppression of glucose production in vivo, increase the capacity for gluconeogenesis in vitro, and increase glucose-6-phosphatase (G-6-Pase) activity in whole cell homogenates. The present study examined the effects of HSD and HFD on in vivo gluconeogenesis, the catalytic and glucose-6-phosphate translocase subunits of G-6-Pase, glucoki...

The enzyme 20α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (20α-HSD) catalyzes the conversion of progesterone to its inactive form, 20α-hydroxyprogesterone. This enzyme plays a critical role in the regulation of luteal function in female mammals. In this study, we conducted the characterization and functional analyses of bovine 20α-HSD from placental and ovarian tissues. The nucleotide sequence of bovine 20α-...

Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) and growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH), primarily characterized as neuroregulators of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, directly influence tissue-specific receptor-systems for CRH and GHRH in the endocrine pancreas. Here, we demonstrate the expression of mRNA for CRH and CRH-receptor type 1 (CRHR1) and of protein for CRHR1 in rat and human pancr...

The synaptic connections of Aplysia sensory neurons (SNs) undergo dramatic homosynaptic depression (HSD) with only a few low-frequency stimuli. Strong and weak SN synapses, although differing in their probabilities of release, undergo HSD at the same rate; this suggests that the major mechanism underlying HSD in these SNs may not be depletion of the releasable pool of vesicles. In computational...

Gel filtration fractions of human hepatic cytosol obtained from an autopsy liver were examined for elution of bile acid oxidoreductases. Several enzymes including 3 alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 alpha-HSD), 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3 beta-HSD), 3-ketosteroid reductase, and dihydrodiol dehydrogenase eluted mainly in the 30,000-40,000 Mr fractions known to contain the newly id...

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of genistein and equol on 3beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3beta-HSD) and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 3 (17beta-HSD3) in human and rat testis microsomes. These enzymes (3beta-HSD and 17beta-HSD3), along with two others (cytochrome P450 side-chain cleavage enzyme and cytochrome P450 17alpha-hydroxylase/17-20 lyase), cat...

Progesterone was stereoselectively reduced to a metabolite 20alpha-hydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one in the cytosolic fraction from the liver of male mice, indicating that the reduction of progesterone is catalyzed by 20alpha-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (20alpha-HSD). The cytosolic 20alpha-HSD activity was observed not only in the liver, but also in the kidney and lung. In liver cytosol, both NADPH and ...

We investigated the change in activity of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) in high-sucrose diet (HSD)-induced obese rats compared with controls. Power spectral analyses of R-R interval variability were performed to obtain the low frequency (LF, 0.04-0.699 Hz) and high frequency (HF, 0.7-3.0 Hz) powers. The percents of fat mass to body weight (%F/BW) and fat to muscle ratios (F/M) were signi...

β-Cell mitochondrial dysfunction as well as proinflammatory cytokines have been suggested to contribute to reduced glucose-stimulated insulin secretion (GSIS) in type 2 diabetes. We recently demonstrated that Cohen diabetic sensitive (CDs) rats fed a high-sucrose, low-copper diet (HSD) developed hyperglycemia and reduced GSIS in association with peri-islet infiltration of fat and interleukin (I...

Glucocorticoids promote the development of many organs including intestine. At the cellular level, the activity of glucocorticoids is regulated by 11 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11 beta HSD) which converts active glucocorticoids to inactive metabolites. As 11 beta HSD is also expressed in the intestine, this enzyme may be an important regulator of intestinal maturation. To investigate th...