To determine whether dietary fat intake during childhood affects the later risk of developing breast cancer, we fed prepubertal rats between post-natal days 5 and 25 a low (16% energy) or high-fat (39% energy) diet composed mainly of n-6 or n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) originating either from corn oil or menhaden oil, respectively, in the ratios of 16-17:1 (n-6 PUFA diets) or 2-3:1 (...

Estrogen plays a key role in the regulation of many pituitary hormones. The presence of estrogen receptor-beta (ER beta) messenger RNA (mRNA) has been demonstrated in the adult anterior pituitary by RT-PCR to be at a level much greater than that of ER beta mRNA. Because the number of ERs has been shown to change during development, in this study we examined the distribution of pituitary ER beta...

The waltzer (v) mouse mutant harbors a mutation in Cadherin 23 (Cdh23) and is a model for Usher syndrome type 1D, which is characterized by congenital deafness, vestibular dysfunction, and prepubertal onset of progressive retinitis pigmentosa. In mice, functionally null Cdh23 mutations affect stereociliary morphogenesis and the polarity of both cochlear and vestibular hair cells. In contrast, t...

BACKGROUND Juvenile myasthenia gravis (MG) is a rare autoantibody mediated autoimmune disorder targeting the neuromuscular endplate. The clinical hallmark is muscle weakness and fatigability. Disease aetiology is complex, including both genetic and environmental factors. The involvement of genes in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) is well established in adult MG. However, HLA associations in E...

The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of activin-A during the in vitro oocyte maturation (IVM) and in vitro embryo culture (IVC) on nuclear maturation, blastocyst yield and blastocyst quality of prepubertal goat oocytes. In Experiment 1, three groups of oocytes were used during the IVM of prepubertal goat oocytes to determine the optimal concentration of recombinant human activi...

OBJECTIVE To investigate differences in sepsis mortality between prepubertal and postpubertal males and females. STUDY DESIGN This was a retrospective review of the Virtual PICU Systems (VPS) database (including 74 pediatric intensive care units [PICUs]) for 2006-2008. We included prepubertal (aged 2-7 years) and postpubertal (aged 16-21 years) children with a primary diagnosis of sepsis admi...

The present study analyzed changes in the expression of RFamide-related peptide-3 (RFRP-3; a mammalian ortholog of avian gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone), in the brain and correlated it with testicular activity of mice of different age groups (day-old, 1-, 3-, 5-, 7-, 9-, 11-, 13-week and 1.5-year-old). Testicular activity after a progressive increase up to 13-week of age declined in the old mi...

The neuroendocrine basis underlying timing of the onset of puberty in rhesus monkeys is examined in this review. The immediate stimulus responsible for the initiation of the pubertal process originates within the central nervous system and is relayed to the pituitary-gonadal axis by an intermittent pattern of gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) secretion, which is viewed as being generated by...