Rhythmic and nonrhythmic modes of anterior pituitary gland secretion.
Because of confounding effects of subject-specific and hormone-specific metabolic clearance, the nature of anterior pituitary secretory events in vivo is difficult to ascertain. We review an approach to this problem, in which deconvolution analysis is used to dissect the underlying secretory behavior of an endocrine gland quantitatively from available serial plasma hormone concentration measurements assuming one- or two-compartment elimination kinetics. This analytical tool allows one to ask the following physiological questions: (a) does the anterior pituitary gland secrete exclusively in randomly dispersed bursts, and/or does a tonic (constitutive) mode of interburst hormone secretion exist? and (b) what secretory mechanisms generate the circadian or nyctohemeral rhythms in blood concentrations of pituitary hormones?(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Veldhuis
J D
JD
Department of Internal Medicine, University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, Charlottesville 22908.
Johnson
M L
ML
Lizarralde
G
G
Iranmanesh
A
A
D000328:Adult; D002940:Circadian Rhythm / Q000502:physiology; D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010507:Periodicity; D010903:Pituitary Gland, Anterior / Q000378:metabolism*; D010908:Pituitary Hormones, Anterior / Q000097:blood / Q000378:metabolism
D010908:Pituitary Hormones, Anterior