BACKGROUND Recent evidence suggests that estrogens exert effects in different tissues throughout the body, and that the estrogen receptor beta (ERbeta) may be important for the action of estrogen (17-beta-estradiol) on the skeleton. The cellular localization of ERbeta in the human intervertebral disc, however, has not yet been explored. METHODS Human disc tissue and cultured human disc cells ...

Cells obtained from N-nitrosomethylurea-induced rat mammary tumors were grown in vitro using the soft-agar clonogenic assay technique. Their growth was studied in regular media containing serum as well as in media lacking serum, but to which insulin was added. Deletion of serum from the media resulted in a mean decrease of 49% in the number of colonies formed in vitro in 13 of 18 tumors and was...

Feminization in men occurs when the effective ratio of androgen to estrogen is lowered. Since sufficient estrogen is produced in normal men to induce breast enlargement in the absence of adequate amounts of circulating androgens, it has been generally assumed that androgens exert an antiestrogenic action to prevent feminization in normal men. We examined the mechanisms of this effect of androge...

Shionogi carcinoma 115 (SC115) had been accepted for 20 years as an androgen-dependent mouse mammary tumor, the growth of which is stimulated only by androgen. However, we very recently found that the growth of SC115 tumors in vivo is stimulated not only by physiological doses of androgen but also by pharmacological doses of estrogen through the estrogen receptor system. In the present study, t...

Animal experiments are widely accepted in arteriosclerosis research. The aim of the present study was to establish an organ culture model (rings of rabbit aortic vessels) to investigate inhibitory estrogen effects on post injury neointima formation in the vessel wall and to examine whether these effects are cytotoxic. Estrogens are used for secondary prevention of atherosclerosis in postmenopau...