13 - Electrophysiological Study of Hormone Secretion by Single Adenohypophyseal Cells

Publisher Summary This chapter presents the electrophysiological study of hormone secretion by single adenohypophyseal cells. Hormones secreted from the anterior pituitary in response to central or peripheral stimulus regulate a wide variety of bodily functions including growth, reproductive fertility, lactation in mammals, and maternal behavior. An approach to study stimulus–secretion coupling is to permeabilize the plasma membrane to allow introduction of low-molecular-weight molecules into cells. However these techniques are not particularly suitable for a study of the mechanisms of hormone secretion by adenohypophyseal cells as the anterior pituitary gland consists of at least six different hormone-containing cell types. This makes it difficult to separate a specific cell type in sufficient quantities to carry on a biochemical experiment. This chapter describes the use of patch-clamp technique in the study of secretion mechanisms in bovine lactotrophs and rat pars intermedia cells. Electrophysiological patch-clamp techniques allow study of the secretory response of a single cell, while different ions and molecules are dialyzed into the cytosol.

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