Balla T
Endocrinology and Reproduction Research Branch, NICHD, National Institutes of Health, Building 49, Room 6A35, 49 Convent Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA.
J Endocrinol. 2006 Feb;188(2):135-53. doi: 10.1677/joe.1.06595.
One of the fundamental questions in endocrinology is how circulating or locally produced hormones affect target cell functions by activating specific receptors linked to numerous signal-transduction pathways. An important subset of G protein-coupled cell-surface receptors can activate phospholipase C enzymes to hydrolyze a small but critically important class of phospholipids, the phosphoinositides. Although this signaling pathway has been extensively explored over the last 20 years, this has proven to be only the tip of the iceberg, and the multiplicity and diversity of the cellular functions controlled by phosphoinositides have surpassed any imagination. Phosphoinositides have been found to be key regulators of ion channels and transporters, and controllers of vesicular trafficking and the transport of lipids between intracellular membranes. Essentially, they organize the recruitment and regulation of signaling protein complexes in specific membrane compartments. While many of these processes have been classically studied by cell biologists, molecular endocrinology cannot ignore these recent advances, and now needs to integrate the cell biologist's views in the modern concept of how hormones affect cell functions and how derailment of simple molecular events can lead to complex endocrine and metabolic disorders.
内分泌学的一个基本问题是，循环激素或局部产生的激素如何通过激活与众多信号转导途径相连的特定受体来影响靶细胞功能。G蛋白偶联细胞表面受体的一个重要亚群可激活磷脂酶C，使其水解一类数量虽少但至关重要的磷脂——磷酸肌醇。尽管在过去20年里对这一信号通路进行了广泛研究，但事实证明这只是冰山一角，磷酸肌醇所控制的细胞功能的多样性和复杂性超出了所有人的想象。现已发现，磷酸肌醇是离子通道和转运体的关键调节因子，也是囊泡运输以及细胞内膜之间脂质转运的调控者。从本质上讲，它们在特定膜区室中组织信号蛋白复合物的募集和调控。虽然细胞生物学家对其中许多过程进行了经典研究，但分子内分泌学不能忽视这些最新进展，现在需要将细胞生物学家的观点融入到关于激素如何影响细胞功能以及简单分子事件的紊乱如何导致复杂内分泌和代谢紊乱的现代概念中。
