Ribosomal proteins in somatotrophinomas

The molecular pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas has been assessed by several different techniques, but still remains unclear. De Lima et al. report on the introduction of serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE), a high-throughput method, in pituitary research in order to compare differential gene expression. They report the first SAGE library from normal pituitary and GH-secreting pituitary tumour tissue, which provide a quantitative assessment of the cellular transcriptome. They also validated some down-regulated genes encoding ribosomal proteins (RP). Their data suggest that the underexpression of the studied RP genes possibly collaborates directly or indirectly with other genes to modify cell cycle arrest, DNA repair and apoptosis, leading to an environment that might have a putative role in tumorigenesis, introducing new perspectives for further studies on the molecular genesis of somatotrophinomas. De Lima et al. (2012), European Journal of Endocrinology 167, 759-768.

Read the full article at DOI: 10.1530/EJE-12-0760.