Expression of progesterone receptor (PR) mRNA in granulosa cells of ovarian preovulatory follicles is induced by LH (1, 2) and is essential for ovulation (3). Although 17beta-estradiol (E) can induce PR mRNA and activate PR promoter-reporter constructs in other cell types, the effects of E in granulosa cells appear to be indirect. We show herein that E alone does not induce the expression of PR...

Transcription of the proto-oncogene c-fos is stimulated by 17 beta-estradiol in estrogen responsive human and rat cells. To understand the molecular mechanisms of estrogen regulation of c-fos gene transcription, the human c-fos gene promoter, with 2.25 Kb of 5'-flanking DNA, was cloned upstream of the bacterial CAT gene and tested for estrogen regulation by transient transfection in HeLa cells....

Estrogens have been found to reduce the incidence of cardiovascular disease that has been ascribed in part to an increased expression and/or activity of the vasoprotective endothelial NO synthase (NOS III). Some reports have shown that the level of expression of this constitutive enzyme can be upregulated by estrogens. The current study investigates the molecular mechanism of the NOS III upregu...

This study is an attempt to determine whether estrogen could directly regulate human gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) gene expression. Human GnRH expression vectors were constructed by fusing various 5' flanking regions of the human GnRH gene upstream of the luciferase reporter gene (LUC) or the thymidine kinase promoter linked to the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase reporter gene (CAT). ...

A new screening assay was described for the determination of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as synthetic estrogens, with an array-type DNA glass slide having characteristics of 1) a high sample throughput, 2) a compact size allowing a small sample volume, and 3) a sensitive determination based on the estrogen-dependent binding of the human estrogen receptor a (hERalpha) with its es...

A reporter gene sequence was constructed within a eukaryotic expression vector. The altered plasmid contained 2 sequential estrogen response elements (ERE) coupled to a human phosphoglycerate kinase (PGK) promoter inserted upstream from a cDNA sequence encoding enhanced green fluorescent protein (GFP) with a 3'-polyadenylation signal. The plasmid was linearized and transfected into MCF-7 cells,...

Prenatal exposure to diethylstilbestrol (DES) is known to cause altered immune functions and increased susceptibility to autoimmune disease in humans. In the current study, we investigated the effect of prenatal exposure to DES on thymocyte differentiation involving apoptotic pathways. Prenatal DES exposure caused thymic atrophy, apoptosis, and up-regulation of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL) express...

background: to reduce the dose to normal tissues surrounding the treated breast, a uniform magnetic field was used within a humanoid phantom in breast radiotherapy. materials and methods: monte carlo simulations were performed with geant4, irradiating humanoid phantoms in a magnetic field. to reconstruct phantoms, computed tomography (ct) data slices of four patients were used for the monte car...

Previous work from this laboratory demonstrated that 17-beta estradiol (E2) can directly stimulate the transcription rate of the rat luteinizing hormone beta (LH beta) gene and that an upstream portion of the LH beta gene between -2.0 and -0.6 kilobases could confer an E2-stimulated response to a reporter gene in transient expression assays. To localize the LH beta estrogen response element (ER...