Preliminary Study on the Relationship between cAMP Level and gsp Expression in Cultured Human Pituitary Somatotrophinomas

In order to investigate the relationship between abnormal intracellular signal transduction and tumorgenesis of human pituitary somatotrophinomas, the effects of protein kinase A (PKA) dependent growth hormone (GH) releasing hormone (GHRH) and protein kinase C (PKC) dependent GH releasing peptide (GHRP 6) on cAMP production were observed by using cell culture and biochemical methods, and the expression of the gsp oncogene was detected by using PCR and direct sequence assay methods in 11 patients with human pituitary somatotrophinomas. It was found that GHRP 6 exerted significant stimulatory effect on cAMP production by 2 gsp positive tumors and no effect on the gsp negative tumors. GHRP 6 could enhance the stimulation of cAMP production induced by GHRH in tumor without gsp oncogenes. It was suggested that both GHRH and GHRP 6 exert identical effects on human pituitary soamtotrophinomas, which was contributed to the cross talk between the two intracellular signal transduction pathways in pituitary cells.

TPA Enhances Growth Horm one (GH) Secretion Effect ofGH-Releasing Horm one (GHRH) by Hum an gsp-PositivePi-tuitary Som atotrophinom as

In recent years, one of the most exciting advances in the researches of pituitary adenomas is the discovery that 30 %-40 % of human pituitary somatotrophinomas carry somatic mutations of the gene for the α subunit of the stimulatory GTP binding protein, G s (G sα). These mutations, termed gsp oncogenes, may play an important role in the tumorigenesis of pituitary adenomas. Of 10 somatotrophinomas examined, 3 (30 %) were proved to be gsp positive, as determined by sequence analysis of DNA generated by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). GHRH exerted a significant stimulatory effect on GH secretion in 2 of 3 gsp positive and 4 of 7 gsp negative tumors. Moreover, phorbol ester, 1, 2 tetradecanoylphorbol 13 acetate (TPA), enhanced stimulation of lated the GH secretion effect exerted by GHRH in gsp positive somatotrophinomas, whereas this effect was not observed in gsp negative tumors. This result suggests that the protein kinase C signal system as well as adenylyl cyclase cAMP protein kinase A intracellular signal transduction system plays a pivotal role in GH secretory control of GHRH, which may work together via a cross talk mechanism.

Clinical and Biochemical Characteristics of Growth Hormone-Secreting Pituitary Tumors

To investigate the difference of biochemical characteristics on gsp positive and gsp negative growth hormone (GH) secreting pituitary tumors, 18 GH secreting pituitary tumors were examined for their clinical characteristics and gsp oncogenes. All patients received the pituitary function combinative stimulating test. It was found that there were no difference in the sex, age, tumor size, course of disease and plasma basal GH levels with gsp positive and gsp negative patients. The plasma levels of PRL were increased in most patients (11/18), and the plasma levels of TSH in gsp positive patients were higher than those in gsp negative patients ( P <0.05). There was no significant difference in the responses to pituitary combinative stimulating test in gsp positive and gsp negative patients. It was concluded that there was little difference in the clinical biochemical characteristics of gsp positive with gsp negative GH secreting pituitary tumors.