Clinical reports suggest close interactions between stressors, particularly those of long duration, and liver diseases, such as hepatic inflammation, that is proposed to occur via reactive oxygen species. In the present study we have used 21-day social isolation of male Wistar rats as a model of chronic stress to investigate protein expression/activity of liver antioxidant enzymes: superoxide dismutases (SODs), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and glutathione reductase (GLR), and protein expression of their upstream regulators: glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and nuclear factor kappa B (NFkB). We have also characterized these parameters in either naive or chronically stressed animals that were challenged by 30-min acute immobilization. We found that chronic isolation caused decrease in serum corticosterone (CORT) and blood glucose (GLU), increase in NFkB signaling, and disproportion between CuZnSOD, peroxidases (CAT, GPx) and GLR, thus promoting H2O2 accumulation and prooxidative state in liver. The overall results suggested that chronic stress exaggerated responsiveness to subsequent stressor at the level of CORT and GLU, and potentiated GLR response, but compromised the restoration of oxido-reductive balance due to irreversible alterations in MnSOD and GPx., J. Djordjevic ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Many stress conditions are ac companied by skeletal muscle dysfunction and regeneration, which is essentially a recapitulation of the embryonic development. However, regeneration usually occurs under conditions of hypo thalamus-pituitary -adrenal gland axis activation and therefore incr eased glucocorticoid (GC) levels. Glucocorticoid receptor (GR), the main determinant of cellular responsiveness to GCs, exists in two isoforms (GRα and GRβ ) in humans. While the role of GR α is well characterized, GRβ remains an elusive player in GC si gnalling. To elucidate basic characteristics of GC signalling in the regenerating human skeletal muscle we assessed GRα and GCβ expression pattern in cultured human myoblasts and myotubes and their response to 24-hour dexamethasone (DEX) treatment. There was no difference in GRα mRNA and protein expression or DEX-mediated GRα down-regulation in myoblasts and myotubes. GRβ mRNA level was very low in myoblasts and remained unaffected by differentiation and/or DEX. GRβ protein could not be detected. These results indicate that response to GCs is established very early during human skeletal muscle regeneration and that it remains practically unchanged before innervation is established. Very low GRβ mRNA expression and inability to detect GRβ protein suggests that GRβ is not a major player in the early stages of human skeletal muscle regeneration., D. Filipović ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Through their receptors at each level of hypothalamo-pituitarygonadal axis glucocorticoid excess, either endogenous or administered or stress-induced, could affect steroid production in the testis and thus male fertility. The main ways by which glucocorticoids act are as follows: 1) Affecting gonadoliberin and LH synthesis and release through glucocorticoid receptors in hypothalamic neurons and pituitary gonadotropes. 2) By so far not clearly evidenced reduction of the number of LH receptors on the membrane of Leydig cells. 3) By affecting expression and function of steroidogenic enzymes in the testis. 4) By regulation of in situ access of glucocorticoid to its target cells in the testis. 5) By promotion Leydig cell apoptosis. The review provides a survey of physiological and molecular mechanisms staying behind these effects. It does not deal with the clinical effects of glucocorticoid treatment which would substantially exceed the scope of the pater., Richard Hampl, Luboslav Stárka., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The aim of the present study was to define the stress-induced pattern of cytosolic glucocorticoid receptor (GR) and Hsp70 protein in the liver of male Wistar rats exposed to different stress models: acute (2 h/day) immobilization or cold (4 °C); chronic (21 days) isolation, crowding, swimming or isolation plus swimming and combined (chronic plus acute stress). Changes in plasma levels of corticosterone were studied by radioimmunoassay (RIA). The results obtained by Western immunoblotting showed that both acute stressors led to a significant decrease in cytosolic GR and Hsp70 levels. Compared to acute stress effects, only a weak decrease in the levels of GR and Hsp70 was demonstrated in chronic stress models. Chronically stressed rats, which were subsequently exposed to novel acute stressors (immobilization or cold), showed a lower extent of GR down-regulation when compared to acute stress. The exception was swimming, which partially restores this down-regulation. The observed changes in the levels of these major stress-related cellular proteins in liver cytosol lead to the conclusion that chronic stressors compromise intracellular GR down-regulation in the liver., D. Filipović, L. Gavrilović, S. Dronjak, M. Demajo, M. B. Radojčić., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy