AIM To examine the expression and regulation of integral membrane protein 2b (Itm2b) in rat male reproductive tissues during sexual maturation and under different treatments by in situ hybridization. METHODS Testis, epididymis, and vas deferens were collected on days 1-70 to examine Itm2b expression during sexual maturation. To further examine the regulation of Itm2b, adult rats underwent sur...

OBJECTIVES Vaginal atrophy and breast cancer are common conditions in postmenopausal women and tamoxifen is the standard endocrine treatment for hormone-sensitive tumors. The present study aimed to assess the effect of tamoxifen on Ki-67 protein expression in the vaginal epithelium of castrated rats. MATERIAL AND METHODS Forty Wistar-Hannover adult, virgin, castrated rats were randomly divide...

Vitamin D has been reported to inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells and model systems. In this study, we examined the interaction between 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) (1,25 D) in the presence or absence of endogenous testosterone on the growth and development of the adult rat prostate. Male Sprague-Dawley rats (165 days old) were either kept intact or castrated. Seven days after castration...

Activation of tumor-stromal interactions is considered to play a critical role in the promotion of tumorigenesis. To discover new therapeutic targets for hormone-refractory prostate tumor growth under androgen ablation therapy, androgen-sensitive LNCaP cells and the derived sublines, E9 (androgen-low-sensitive), and AIDL (androgen-insensitive), were recombined with androgen-dependent embryonic ...

To determine the source of angiotensinogen excreted in urine, urine angiotensinogen was measured in male and female rats during growth. Angiotensinogen in 24-hr urine, measured by direct radioimmunoassay with antibody against rat angiotensinogen, increased fourfold in males between the ages of 5 and 7 weeks, whereas no significant changes were observed in females or castrated males. Plasma leve...

OBJECTIVE • To investigate the regulatory role of androgen in VIP-mediated erectile effect. Androgen is essential for physiological erection. Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide (VIP) is an important erectile neurotransmitter. While previous studies demonstrated that VIP expression in the penis was androgen-independent, it remains controversial whether androgen has any effect on VIP-mediated erec...

objective: the present study aimed to determine whether castration altered osmotically stimulated vasopressin (vp) release and urinary volume and what is the role of endocrine-stress axis in this process. materials and methods: totally 108 mice were studied in two main groups of castrated (n=78) and control (n=30). each group was extracted by acute cold stress (4◦c for 2h/day), restraint stress...

OBJECTIVE Calcitriol analogues might represent an interesting new therapy for benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). We here report the preclinical characterization of BXL-628, an analogue selected for an ongoing double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled phase II trial in BPH. DESIGN Experiments with BXL-628 were carried out in human BPH cells and in the ventral prostate of intact and castrate...