We have demonstrated and localized human GH (hGH) gene expression in surgical specimens of normal human mammary gland and in proliferative disorders of the mammary gland of increasing severity using sensitive in situ RT-PCR methodology. hGH mRNA identical to pituitary hGH mRNA was first detected by RT-PCR of RNA derived from samples of normal human mammary gland. Cellular localization of hGH ge...

A high-affinity variant of human growth hormone (hGH(v)) contains 15 mutations within site 1 and binds to the hGH receptor (hGHR) approximately 400-fold tighter than does wild-type (wt) hGH (hGH(wt)). We used shotgun scanning combinatorial mutagenesis to dissect the energetic contributions of individual residues within the hGH(v) binding epitope and placed them in context with previously determ...

Activation of eukaryotic genes often relies on remote chromatin determinants. How these determinants function remains poorly understood. The hGH gene is activated by a 5'-remote locus control region (LCR). Pituitary-specific DNase I hypersensitive site I (HSI), the dominant hGH LCR element, is separated from the hGH-N promoter by a 14.5 kb span that encompasses the B-lymphocyte-specific CD79b g...

Human growth hormone (hGH) and ovine prolactin (oPRL) are both lactogenic as defined by their ability to induce milk-protein synthesis in vitro in the presence of insulin and hydrocortisone. At physiological concentrations, both hGH and oPRL have similar dose-response curves in a mouse mammary gland organ culture system. Binding of 125I-labeled hGH (125I-hGH) to lactogenic receptors is competed...

Using immunoradiometric assays (IRMAs) from Hybritech Inc. (H) and Nichols Institute Diagnostics (ND), we measured somatotropin (human growth hormone, hGH) in serum samples obtained every 20 min for 24 h from 10 prepubertal subjects with short stature. Results obtained with the ND reagents were 2.74 times greater than those obtained with the H reagents (P = 0.00001, r = 0.94, SEE = 3.9, n = 720...

Major metabolic effects of human growth hormone (HGH) were assessed in the African Babinga pygmy. Plasma free fatty acid (FFA) and glucose concentrations were measured in pygmies, HGH-deficient dwarfs, Bantu tribesmen, and Caucasian controls after each received 4 mg of HGH intravenously over a 20 min period. Pygmies had an early decrease of plasma FFA and glucose concentration, but did not exhi...

Oxygen-activating copper proteins may possess His-X(aa)-His chelating sequences at their active sites and additionally exhibit imidiazole group δN vs εN tautomeric preferences. As shown here, such variations strongly affect copper ion's coordination geometry, redox behavior, and oxidative reactivity. Copper(I) complexes bound to either δ-HGH or ε-HGH tripeptides were synthesized and characteriz...

Two endocrine functions, HGH synthesis and release, were separately studied on human chromophobe adenomas, isolating the hormone with polyacrylamide gel disc electrophoresis after in vitro labelling of the hormone with 14C-leucine. The results of the experiments utilizing fresh adenoma tissues obtained from 8 cases at operation revealed that all of the adenomas synthesized and...

BACKGROUND Human growth hormone (hGH) is naturally present in numerous isoforms, some of which arise from proteolytic processing in both the pituitary and periphery. The nature of the enzymes that proteolytically cleave hGH and the regulation of this process are not fully understood. Our objective is to examine if members of a newly discovered human tissue kallikrein family (KLKs) are expressed...