Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare malignancy and even rarer in infancy. Most of these tumors in pediatric age group are hormonally active and predominantly present with virilization. Cortisol hypersecretion presenting as Cushing syndrome is extremely rare and seen in older age groups. We report a 4-month-old infant who presented with linear growth arrest and excessive weight gain in earl...

In higher vertebrates, estrogen can exert an organizational effect on sexually dimorphic areas of the central nervous system (CNS) during the perinatal phase of development. The possibility that estrogenic pollutants may mimic estrogen action on the CNS during development and produce long-lasting or irreversible effects is an issue of great concern. Bisphenol A (BPA), a compound widely used in ...

The intracellular signaling molecule STAT5 is activated in rat liver by the intermittent male plasma GH pattern to a 10-fold higher level than by the more continuous pattern of plasma GH stimulation seen in females. Individual adult male rats are presently shown to exhibit large differences in liver STAT5 DNA-binding activity, which correlates with the presence of significant levels of GH in pl...

Y chromosomes often degenerate via the accumulation of pseudogenes and transposable elements. By contrast, little is known about X-chromosome degeneration. Here we compare the pseudogenization process between genes on the neo-sex chromosomes in Drosophila miranda and their autosomal orthologues in closely related species. The pseudogenization rate on the neo-X is much lower than the rate on the...

Cases of sexual reassignment in Greco-Roman antiquity, presenting as a pubertal female to male gender transformation, are described in the "classical"literature. Textual evidence concerning a case of androgynism, garnered by Diodorus Siculus, among other similar accounts, as an odd story of gender dispute in a court of justice, is provided in the present study. A medical interpretation of the d...

Sharing of intrauterine environment in twins of opposite sex has been hypothesized to result in masculinization of the female twin. We tested this hypothesis by comparing strength (maximum hand-grip pressure) and various anthropometric measures in a newly established survey panel comprising 4,314 middle-aged twins identified through a Danish population-based twin registry. Sex- and zygosity-spe...

Mild clinical signs of hyperandrogenism such as hirsutism may appear during the menopausal transition as part of the normal aging process, but the development of frank virilization suggests a specific source of androgen excess. We report a case of a 68-year-old woman with signs of virilization that had started 6 months before. Clinical analyses revealed high levels of serum testosterone for a p...

Estrogens shape brain circuits during development, and the capacity to synthesize estrogens locally has consequences for both sexual differentiation and the acute modulation of circuits during early learning. A recently optimized method to detect and quantify fluctuations in brain estrogens in vivo provides a direct means to explore how brain estrogen production contributes to both differentiat...

Sex ratio imbalances found in Asia are primarily due to the increasing proportions of sons among children in China and India. This gradual demographic masculinization over the last two decades results from the rapid progression in the number of sex-selective abortions aimed at ensuring the birth of male children. While other factors such as female infanticide or excess child mortality have play...

The case of a 42-year-old woman with virilization, hirsutes, and a high level of circulating testosterone is described. A hilar cell tumour of the ovary was found, the histological features of which were typical, with the presence of crystalloids of Reinke, hyaline bodies, lipid, and lipofuscin. Some areas showed appearances similar to those seen in ;adrenocortical cell' tumours. In common with...