Revealing the large-scale network organization of growth hormone-secreting cells.

ABSTRACT: Pituitary growth hormone (GH)-secreting cells regulate growth and metabolism in animals and humans. To secrete highly ordered GH pulses (up to 1,000-fold rise in hormone levels in vivo), the pituitary GH cell population needs to mount coordinated responses to GH secretagogues, yet GH cells display an apparently heterogeneous scattered distribution in 2D histological studies. To address this paradox, we analyzed in 3D both positioning and signaling of GH cells using reconstructive, two-photon excitation microscopy to image the entire pituitary in GH-EGFP transgenic mice. Our results unveiled a homologous continuum of GH cells connected by adherens junctions that wired the whole gland and exhibited the three primary features of biological networks: robustness of architecture across lifespan,

SUBMITTER: Bonnefont X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1277257 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature