Abstract
Thirty-one consecutive cases of pituitary adenoma in acromegalic patients were studied by immunohistochemistry. All adenomas contained cells immunoreactive with the anti-α-subunit of gonadotropic hormones (α; 0.6–53% of tumor cells) as well as with anti-growth hormone (GH; 4–74% of tumor cells). In serial section study, most cells immunoreactive with anti-α were identical to cells immunoreactive with anti-GH. There was a positive correlation between the percentages of cells immunoreactive for α in GH cells [α(%)/GH(%)] and those for prolactin (PRL) in immunoreactive tumor cells {PRL(%)/[PRL(%)+GH(%)]} in mixed GH cell-PRL cell adenomas, suggesting that the α-subunit may play a role in emergence of PRL cells.
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Furuhata, S., Kameya, T., Tsuruta, T. et al. Colocalization of growth hormone (GH) and glycoprotein subunit α in GH-producing pituitary adenomas in acromegalic patients. Acta Neuropathol 87, 568–571 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293316
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00293316