The discrete regulation of vascular tone in the human uterine and placental circulations is a key determinant of appropriate uteroplacental blood perfusion and pregnancy success. Humoral factors such as estrogen, which increases in the placenta and maternal circulation throughout human pregnancy, may regulate these vascular beds as studies of animal arteries have shown that 17β-estradiol, or ag...

Meishan embryos transferred to recipient females on day 2.5 are larger, contain greater numbers of trophectoderm cells, and secrete greater amounts of estradiol-17β when gestated in a Yorkshire compared with Meishan uterus to day 12. Additionally, placentae of Meishan conceptuses are larger when gestated in a Yorkshire compared with Meishan uterus throughout gestation. Embryonic estradiol-17β s...

BACKGROUND Biotransformation of organic compounds by using microbial whole cells provides an efficient approach to obtain novel analogues which are often difficult to synthesize chemically. In this manuscript, we report for the first time the microbial transformation of a synthetic anabolic steroidal drug, oxymetholone, by fungal cell cultures. RESULTS Incubation of oxymetholone (1) with Macr...

CONTEXT The relationship between low-penetrance genes, metabolic risk factors, and levels of endogenous 17β-estradiol and progesterone, which play a role in breast cancer risk, remains unclear. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to determine whether common polymorphisms in CYP17, in combination with metabolic risk factors (individually or clustered), alter salivary concentrations of free bio...

Organic anion transporting polypeptide (OATP) 1B1 is an important drug transporter expressed in human hepatocytes. Previous studies have indicated that transmembrane (TM) domain 2, 6, 8, 9, and in particular 10 might be part of the substrate binding site/translocation pathway. To explore which amino acids in TM10 are important for substrate transport, we mutated 34 amino acids individually to c...

PURPOSE Corneal fibroblasts contribute to collagen remodeling in the corneal stroma in part by mediating collagen degradation. Given that corneal structure is influenced by sex hormone status, we examined the effects of sex hormones on collagen degradation by corneal fibroblasts. METHODS Rabbit corneal fibroblasts were cultured in three-dimensional collagen gels with or without sex hormones i...

Bisphenol-A (BPA) is known to be a potent endocrine disrupter. Evidence is emerging that estrogen exerts a rapid influence on hippocampal synaptic plasticity and the dendritic spine density, which requires activation of NMDA receptors. In the present study, we investigated the effects of BPA (ranging from 1 to 1000 nM), focusing on the rapid dynamic changes in dendritic filopodia and the expres...

BACKGROUND & AIMS Oestrogen and oestrogen-mediated signalling protect from hepatitis C virus through incompletely understood mechanisms. We aimed to ascertain which phase(s) of hepatitis C virus life cycle is/are affected by oestrogens. METHODS Huh7 cells infected with the JFH1 virus (genotype 2a) were exposed to dehydroepiandrosterone, testosterone, progesterone and 17β-estradiol (tested wit...

17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (17β-HSD1) converts estrone (E1) into estradiol (E2) and is expressed in many steroidogenic tissues and breast cancer cell lines. Because the potent estrogen E2 stimulates the growth and development of hormone-dependent diseases, inhibition of the final step of E2 synthesis is considered a promising strategy for the treatment of breast cancer. On the basi...

Required routine monitoring of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) in water samples, as posed by EPA Unregulated Contaminant Regulation (UCMR3), demands for cost-effective, reliable and sensitive EDC detection methods. This study reports a reusable evanescent wave aptamer-based biosensor for rapid, sensitive and highly selective detection of 17β-estradiol, an EDC that is frequently detected i...