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Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology

Glucocorticoid receptor involvement in goose (Anas cygnoides) pituitary somatotroph differentiation induced by glucocorticoids during embryonic development

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Pages 395-403 | Received 14 Oct 2018, Accepted 08 Apr 2019, Published online: 31 May 2019
 

ABSTRACT

1. In this study, geese (Anas cygnoides) embryonic pituitary cells were cultured in vitro to determine if glucocorticoids could induce growth hormone (GH) expression and to investigate the molecular mechanisms involved in this process.

2. On embryonic day 15 (e15) and e20 the pituitary cells were treated with corticosterone (CORT), membrane impermeable bovine serum albumin–conjugate corticosterone (CORT-BSA), dexamethasone (DEX), and a glucocorticoid receptor (GR) antagonist (RU486) to detect responsiveness of somatotrophs to glucocorticoids.

3. Treatment with CORT, CORT-BSA, and DEX for as little as 6 h increased the percentage of GH-positive cells (P < 0.01) and increased GH mRNA expression (P < 0.01) in e15 goose pituitary cells compared to the control. CORT significantly increased the level of GH protein secreted from cultured e15 goose embryonic pituitary cells, and CORT-BSA increased GH secretion from e20 goose embryonic pituitary cells.

4. A significant increase was observed in the glucocorticoid receptor in GR transcription levels (P < 0.01) with CORT, CORT-BSA, and DEX treatment. Furthermore, the CORT-stimulated GH mRNA expression was completely negated by pre-treatment with RU486.

5. These findings demonstrate that glucocorticoids can stimulate somatotroph differentiation in vitro, as characterised by enhanced GH protein secretion andmRNA expression in cultured geese embryonic pituitary cells. The membrane GR was involved in pituitary somatotroph differentiation induced by glucocorticoids during the embryonic development of geese.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Prof. Tom E. Porter (Department of Animal and Avian Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD) for generously providing the chicken GH primary antibody and his suggestions for this experiment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province [BK20150546];CX(14)2068 [the Fund for Independent Innovation of Agricultura].

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