Emanuelsson, I. 2017. Steroids and steroid-metabolizing enzymes in the nervous system. Special focus on cell survival and sex hormone synthesis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Pharmacy 236. 54 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-0056-6. Some steroids in the brain and peripheral nervous system have been shown to have neuropro...

Nesfatin-1 is an important molecule in the regulation of reproduction. However, its role in the reproductive axis in male animals remains to be understood. Here, we found that nesfatin-1 was mainly distributed in the arcuate nucleus (ARC), paraventricular nucleus (PVN), periventricular nucleus (PeN), and lateral hypothalamic area (LHA) of the hypothalamus; adenohypophysis and Leydig cells in ma...

Extragonadal tissues are known to produce estrogens. At these sites, the C19 precursor is important for aromatase expression for the production of estrogen. Aromatase expression is tissue-specific and is controlled by hormones. Recent studies have shown that rat gastric parietal cells expressed aromatase. Our first objective was to investigate steroidogenic enzyme expression in estrogen biosynt...

Hypoxia is an important environmental stressor leading to endocrine disruption and reproductive impairment in fish. Although the hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) is known to regulate the transcription of various genes mediating oxygen homeostasis, its role in modulating steroidogenesis-related gene expression remains poorly understood. In this study, the regulatory effect of HIF-1 on the expr...

Hypoxia can impair reproduction of fishes through the disruption of sex steroids. Here, using zebrafish (Danio rerio) embryos, we investigated (i) whether hypoxia can directly affect steroidogenesis independent of pituitary regulation via modulation of steroidogenic gene expression, and (ii) the role of leptin in hypoxia-induced disruption of steroidogenesis. Exposure of fertilized zebrafish em...

Mancozeb, an Inorganic-zinc dithiocarbamate is a typical fungicide with carbamate structure. It is chemically identified as ethylenebisdithiocarbamate (EBDC). It is commonly used for foliar application and seed treatment in agriculture. The present work was conducted to assess the protective effect of vitamin C against Mancozeb induced toxicity in the Testicular activity of adult albino rats. 9...

BACKGROUND Bisphenol A (BPA) has been detected in human body fluids, such as serum and ovarian follicular fluids. Several reports indicated that BPA exposure is associated with the occurrence of several female reproductive diseases resulting from the disruption of steroid hormone biosynthesis in the adult ovary. OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that long-term exposure to low concentrations of BPA di...

Inhibition of enzymes involved in the synthesis of sex steroids can substantially impact developmental and reproductive processes controlled by the hypothalmic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. A key steroidogenic enzyme that has received little attention from a toxicological perspective is 3β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3β-HSD). In these studies, we exposed reproductively-active fathead minnows ...

Hypoxia has been suggested to enhance progesterone (P4) synthesis in luteinizing granulosa cells (GCs), but the mechanism is unclear. The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that the hypoxia-induced increase in P4 synthesis during luteinization in bovine GCs is mediated by hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1). GCs obtained from small antral follicles were cultured with 2 µg/ml insul...

Zinc oxide nanopartciles (ZnONPs) involved in advanced technologies, and their wide-scale use in consumer market makes human beings more prone to the exposure to ZnONPs. The present study was undertaken to evaluate amelioration of ZnONP-induced toxicities with querectin in male albino rats. ZnONPs-treated rats showed a significant decrease in sperm cell count, sperm motility, live and normal sp...