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The Effect of Acute and Repeated Stress on CRH-R1 and CRH-R2 mRNA Expression in Pituitaries of Wild Type and CRH Knock-Out Mice

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Abstract

The activation of the HPA axis is the endocrine measure of stress responsiveness that is initiated by corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH). CRH exerts its effects via CRHR1 and CRH-R2 receptors coupled to the cAMP signaling system and this process involves transcription factor cAMP-responsive element-binding protein (CREB).This study investigated the role of CRH and the possible involvement of CREB in gene regulation of CRH receptor, under basal conditions and after stress application in the pituitary. We used wild type (wt +/+) controls and CRH knock-out (CRH-KO −/−) male mice. Using CRH-deficient mice, we were able to investigate the consequences of the lack of the CRH on the expression of CRH receptors and transcriptional regulation mediated by CREB. We estimated the effect of acute (IMO 1×) and repeated (IMO 7×) restraint stressors lasting 30 and 120 min on the expression of mRNA CREB, CRH-R1, and CRH-R2 by qPCR. We found very significant difference in the expression of these peptides under the effect of single and repeated stress in control and CRH-KO mice. Our results indicate that both CRH receptors and CREB might be involved in the regulation of stress response in the pituitary of mice. We propose that regulation of the stress response may be better understood if more were known about the mechanisms of CRH receptor signal transduction and involvement of CREB system.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Grants PROGRES Q25/LF1 and SVV 260377 from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Neuropharmacology, Institute of Medical Biochemistry and Laboratory Diagnostics of the First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Albertov 4, 128 00, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Vera Klenerova & Sixtus Hynie

  2. Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Biomedical Research Center, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Richard Kvetnansky

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  1. Vera Klenerova
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  2. Richard Kvetnansky
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Correspondence to Vera Klenerova.

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Klenerova, V., Kvetnansky, R. & Hynie, S. The Effect of Acute and Repeated Stress on CRH-R1 and CRH-R2 mRNA Expression in Pituitaries of Wild Type and CRH Knock-Out Mice. Cell Mol Neurobiol 38, 163–169 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10571-017-0556-3

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