Since both glucocorticoids and catecholamines are involved in the regulation of normal blood pressure, we investigated the modulation of beta-adrenergic receptors of cultured rat arterial smooth muscle cells by glucocorticoids. The synthetic glucocorticoids dexamethasone and RU 28362, at 10(-8) M concentration, increased maximum beta-adrenergic binding but had no effect on the dissociation cons...

Glucocorticoid receptors are present in most normal and malignant mammalian cells. To examine the hypothesis that the growth of methylcholanthrene-induced malignant sarcoma is glucocorticoid dependent, we evaluated the behavior of malignant fibrosarcoma (MCA) in adrenalectomized rats treated with either normal saline or deoxycorticosterone acetate and in intact rats treated with placebo or with...

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a disease of multifactorial etiology characterised by rapid development of severe diffuse and nonhomogenous inflammation of the pulmonary lobules causing life-threatening hypoxaemic respiratory failure. The current authors tested a therapeutic intervention on a previously defined pathophysiological model of ARDS. The model was defined by investigati...

The transcription-intermediary-factor-2 (TIF-2) is a coactivator of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and its disruption would be expected to influence glucocorticoid-mediated control of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. Here, we show that its targeted deletion in mice is associated with altered expression of several glucocorticoid-dependent components of HPA regulation (e.g., corti...

Recent studies have shown that glucocorticoids may have modulatory effect on anxiety reactions. This effect may occur with opioid system interference. According to that, the purpose of this research is to assess the effect of dexamethasone as glucocorticoid agonist and its interaction with opioidergic system on the anxiety modulatory effect in plus maze model in mice. Male white mice with mediu...

Elevated glucocorticoid levels impair memory retrieval. We investigated whether retrieval under naturally elevated glucocorticoid levels, i.e., during the morning rise in cortisol can be improved by suppressing cortisol. In a crossover study 16 men retrieved emotional and neutral texts and pictures (learned 3 d earlier) 30 min after morning awakening, following administration of the cortisol sy...

Immobility time of rats in the forced swim test was reduced after bilateral infusion of an 18-mer antisense phosphorothioate oligodeoxynucleotide targeted to the glucocorticoid receptor mRNA into the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus. Vehicle-, sense- and scrambled sequence-treated animals spent significantly more time immobile than antisense-treated animals during the initial test. Immunolabeli...

Corticosteroids influence the development and function of the heart and its response to injury and pressure overload via actions on glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid (MR) receptors. Systemic corticosteroid concentration depends largely on the activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, but glucocorticoid can also be regenerated from intrinsically inert metabolites by the ...

A recombinant full length human glucocorticoid receptor stimulates transcription in vitro of test genes containing synthetic glucocorticoid and progesterone response elements or murine mammary tumor virus promoter. The receptor expressed in a baculoviral vector is highly active, enhancing transcription of hormone response genes greater than 30-fold even at a receptor concentration of 1.2 nM. Th...

Glucocorticoid and thyroid hormones exert their effects in many body tissues by binding to their respective receptors. The search for possible cross-talking mechanisms in overlapping target cells led to the discovery of synergism between a thyroid hormone receptor-binding site and a cryptic glucocorticoid-responsive element. Glucocorticoid responsiveness could only be detected in the presence o...