Abstract
The mammalian uterus undergoes significant growth on a regular basis. For example, in a mouse within an estrous cycle of four days, the number of uterine epithelial cells must double within two days and return to normal levels in the next two. This process is repeated throughout the reproductive lifetime of the animal, which means that the murine uterine epithelium will be reconstituted approximately 90 times in one year. This remarkable growth potential obviously requires numerous controls. A single prime stimulus for initiation of uterine epithelial proliferation is a female sex hormone, estrogen, in the appropriate pharmacological form. Although estrogen is the apparent proximate effector of uterine epithelial cell division, the actual mechanism whereby its mitogenic signal is transduced within the uterine tissue or cell is still not completely known. Certainly, at the molecular level, the estrogen receptor (ER), functioning as a transcription factor, is involved in regulation of expression of specific genes, some of which may be involved in estrogen-induced mitogenesis; these pathways, however, remain to be established. At the same time, results have been presented that raise the possibility that peptide growth factors (or polyfunctional regulating factors) are involved in uterine cell biology.
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© 1991 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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McLachlan, J.A., Nelson, K.G., Takahashi, T., Bossert, N.L., Newbold, R.R., Korach, K.S. (1991). Estrogens and Growth Factors in the Development, Growth, and Function of the Female Reproductive Tract. In: Schomberg, D.W. (eds) Growth Factors in Reproduction. Serono Symposia, USA. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3162-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3162-2_14
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