................................................................................................. 1 LIST OF ORIGINAL PAPERS .................................................................. 2 ABBREVIATIONS....................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................5-29...

BACKGROUND Since estrogen is known to increase vascular endothelial cell growth, elevated estrogen exposure from hormone replacement therapy or oral contraceptives has the potential to contribute in the development of abnormal proliferative vascular lesions and subsequent thickening of the vasculature. How estrogen may support or promote vascular lesions is not clear. We have examined in this s...

Hormonal stress response is associated with the pathogenesis of disease, including cancer. The role of the stress hormone CRH (corticotropin-releasing hormone) in breast cancer is complex, and its abundance and biological activity may be modulated by estrogen. In the estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) malignant mammary epithelial cell line MCF7, CRH activated numerous kinases and downstream effec...

Antiestrogen therapy remains one of the most widely used and effective treatments for the management of endocrine responsive breast cancers. This reflects the ability of antiestrogens to compete with estrogens for binding to estrogen receptors. Whereas response rates of up to 70% are reported in patients with tumors expressing estrogen and progesterone receptors, most responsive tumors will eve...

Estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) mediates estrogen-dependent gene transcription, which plays a critical role in mammary gland development, reproduction and homeostasis. Histone acetyltransferases and class I and class II histone deacetylases (HDACs) cause posttranscriptional modification of histone proteins that participate in ERalpha signaling. Here, we report that human SIRT1, a class III HD...

BACKGROUND Estrogen signaling is mediated by estrogen receptor beta isoforms in normal and neoplastic human testes. Recently, a G-protein-coupled-receptor (GPER) has been suggested as being involved in rapid responses to estrogens in different normal and tumor cells. METHODS This study investigated the GPER expression in paraffin-embedded samples from non neoplastic and neoplastic human teste...