BACKGROUND Use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase the risk of adult-onset asthma in women. Various in vitro studies have reported that estradiol stimulates human mast cell lines causing release of allergic mediators which was not observed in estrogen receptor-alpha (ER-alpha) knockout mice. Thus, estrogen might be a key element in occurrence of asthma. In the present study, we pr...

Introduction: The etiology of male breast cancer is unclear, but hormonal levels may play a role in development of this disease. It seems that the risk of male breast cancer related to increased lifelong exposure to estrogen or reduced androgen. The aim of this study was to investigate the expression of the steroid hormone receptors including estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR...

Glucocorticoids (GCs) and estrogen can modulate neuron death and dysfunction during neurological insults. Glucocorticoids are adrenal steroids secreted during stress, and hypersecretion of GCs during cerebral ischemia compromises the ability of hippocampal and cortical neurons to survive. In contrast, estrogen can be neuroprotective after cerebral ischemia. Here we evaluate the protective poten...

OBJECTIVE E2 accelerates reendothelialization through estrogen receptor alpha (ER alpha), and we now aimed at defining the precise local and systemic cellular actors of this process. METHODS AND RESULTS The respective roles of endothelial and hematopoietic targets of E2 were investigated in a mouse carotid injury model, using confocal microscopy, to follow endothelium repair. Grafting ER alph...

This study examines whether the serine/threonine protein kinase, Akt, is involved in the cross-talk between epidermal growth factor (EGF) and insulin-related growth factor I (IGF-I) receptors and ER-alpha. Treatment of MCF-7 cells with either EGF or IGF-I resulted in a rapid phosphorylation of Akt and a 14- to 16-fold increase in Akt activity, respectively. Akt activation was blocked by inhibit...

Estrogens play an important role in the regulation of placental function, and 17-beta-estradiol (E2) production rises eighty fold during human pregnancy. Although term placenta has been found to specifically bind estrogens, cellular localization of estrogen receptor alpha (ER-alpha) in trophoblast remains unclear. We used western blot analysis and immunohistochemistry with h-151 and ID5 monoclo...

Female rats and mice have smaller and, per body mass (BM), more alveoli and alveolar surface area (Sa) than males of their respective species. This sexual dimorphism becomes apparent about the time of sexual maturity. It is prevented in rats (not tested in mice) by ovariectomy at age 3 wk. In female mice, estrogen receptor (ER)-alpha and ER-beta are required for formation of alveoli of appropri...

Lifetime exposure to estrogens is a major risk factor in breast cancer, but the mechanism for this action is not fully defined. To better determine this mechanism, the activation domain of estrogen receptor (ER) alpha was used in yeast two-hybrid screenings. These screenings resulted in the identification of a novel antiproliferative protein, estrogen down-regulated gene 1 (EDG1), of which the ...

Altered death receptor signaling and resistance to subsequent apoptosis is an important clinical resistance mechanism. Here, we investigated the role of death receptor resistance in breast cancer progression. Resistance of the estrogen receptor alpha (ER)-positive, chemosensitive MCF7 breast cancer cell line to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) was associated with loss of ER expression and a multi-dr...

Introduction: Neurohormones like testosterone and estradiol have an important role in learning and memory. The hippocampus is essentially involved in learning and memory, and is known to be a target for estradiol actions. Estrogen receptors (ERs) are highly expressed in CA1 of rat hippocampus, and mediate the effects of estrogen on learning and memory. Estradiol receptor belong to a family ...