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Lecture Notes: Introduction to Endocrinology: "Gland to teach you."

Objective 75-1: Identify the general characteristics of hormones and the glands
they come from.
 Endocrine (hormonal) system controls different metabolic function of body including:

 Control chemical reaction rate of cells,

 Transport of substances through cell membrane,
 Growth of body,
 Secretion of other hormones

 Hormonal effects can occur in seconds (norepinephrine, epinephrine), or several days, weeks, even
months (thyroxine, growth hormone).

 Nervous system can interact with hormonal system:

Neural stimuli from autonomic nervous system  adrenal medullae and pituitary glands  secretion of
hormones

Hormone
 A chemical substance
 Secreted by a gland or a group of glands into body fluid
 Has a physiological control effect on other cells of the body
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Endocrine Glands

 Anterior pituitary, under hormonal control

it secretes:
- growth hormone,
- adrenocorticotropin,
- thyroid-stimulating hormone,
- follicle-stimulating hormone,
- luteinizing hormone,
- prolactin

 Posterior pituitary, under neuronal control

it secretes:
- antidiuretic hormone,
- oxytocin

 Adrenal cortex, under hormonal control

it secretes:
- cortisol
- aldosterone
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 Adrenal medulla, under neural control

it secretes:
- catacholamine hormones:
- adrenaline (epinephrine) major
- noradrenaline (norepinephrine) minor

 Thyroid gland
it secretes:
- thyroxine (T4)
- triidothyronine (T3)
- calcitonin

 Parathyroid gland
it secretes:
-parathormone (parathyroid hormone) Parathyroid (all
four pink dots)
Thyroid
(the whole
yellow part)

 Islets of Langerhans in pancreas

it secretes:
- insulin,
- glucagon
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 Ovaries
- Estrogens, progesterone.

 Testes
- Testosterone
 Placenta
- Human chorionic gonadotropin, estrogens, progesterone, somatomammotropin

(these ones not covered in this course)

Objective 75-2: Identify the basic chemical types of hormones and their
mechanisms of target actions.

 Hormones can be classified as local hormone and general hormone according to the range of their
effect.

 Local hormones
- Only has specific local effect on specific tissues (target tissue)

 Acetylcholine (Ach)
- Released from skeletal or parasympathetic nerve endings for controlling muscle
contraction

 Secretin
- Released from duodenal wall  transported in blood to pancreas  cause pancreas
secretion

 Cholecystokinin
- Released in small intestine  transported to
(1)  gallbladder  cause gallbladder contraction,
(2)  pancreas  cause secretion of digestive enzyme.
 Adrenocorticotropin
- Released from anterior pituitary gland  stimulates adrenal cortex to secrete
adrenocortical hormones

 Ovarian hormones
- Specific effects on female sex organ.
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 Antidiuretic hormones (vasopressin)

- Released from posterior pituitary gland  kidney  promoting body water retention.

 General hormones
- Transported in blood to all parts of body
- Cause many different reactions.

 Epinephrine (E) and Norepinephrine (NE)

- Secreted by adrenal medullae under sympathetic stimulation
- Transported in blood to all parts of body
- Cause constriction of blood vessels and increase of arterial pressure

 Growth hormone (GH)

- Released from anterior pituitary gland
- Cause growth in all parts of body

 Thyroid hormone (T3 and T4)

- Released from thyroid gland
- Increase chemical reaction rate in almost all body cells

Chemical Types of Hormones

 Hormones can be classified chemically into three types, steroid, protein, and tyrosine.

 Steroid hormones
 Have cholesterol based structure
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 Hormones Released from

cortisol adrenal cortex
aldosterone adrenal cortex
estrogen ovaries or placenta
progesterone ovaries or placenta
testosterone testes

 Receptors for these hormones are in the cell cytoplasm

 Mechanism of hormone action
Steroid hormones enter cytoplasm of cell  bind with receptors  diffuse or
transported into nucleus  bind to and activate DNA strands  initiate
transcription process of genes to form RNA messenger  RNA diffuse into
cytoplasm  promote different functions including membrane transport for
ions, synthesis of proteins, etc.
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 Tyrosine-based Hormones

 Amino acid tyrosine based structure

 Hormones Released from
thyroxine (T4) thyroid gland
triiodothyronine (T3) thyroid gland
epinephrine (E) adrenal medullae
norepinephrine (NE) adrenal medullae

 Location of Receptors
 In the cell nucleus
- For most of the tyrosine-based hormones: thyroid hormones
 On or in the surface of cell membrane
- For epinephrine and norepinephrine
 Mechanism of hormone action

 For thyroid hormones

Thyroid hormones  bind with receptor in cell nucleus  bind and activate
DNA  initiate transcriptions of specific genes to form RNA messenger 
RNA diffuses into cytoplasm  new proteins (enzymes) are formed and
become the controller to promote metabolic activities in all cells of body

 For epinephrine (E), norepinephrine (NE), (including acetylcholine (Ach))

E or NE  bind with receptors on the cell membrane  cause
conformational change of proteins structure of the receptor  open or close
channels for ions (Na or K) (change of membrane permeability)  change of
cell membrane potential  cause cell excitation or inhibition

 Protein (Peptide-based) Hormones

Note: A polypeptide is technically less than 20 amino acids long, some of the hormones on this
list fall under that category. Greater than 20 is considered a protein. For the purpose of
the course we can consider polypeptides and proteins to be the same thing.

 Polypeptide based
 Hormones Released from
anterior pituitary hormones anterior pituitary
posterior pituitary hormones posterior pituitary
insulin islet in pancreas
glucagon islet in pancreas
parathormone parathyroid gland
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 Receptors for these hormones are on the surface of cell membrane.

 Mechanism of hormone action

Protein or peptide-based hormones bind receptors on membrane (protrudes to exterior of

cell)  structure change in receptor  receptor becomes activated
enzyme "adenyl cyclase"  activate the formation of "cyclic adenosine
monophosphate" (cAMP)  second messenger activates a cascade of
enzymes  cause powerful effects on cells including:
 Synthesis of intracellular chemicals,
 Muscle contraction or relaxation,
 Secretion of hormones,
 Change cell permeability to ions
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Objective 75-3: Identify the more common types of intracellular "second

messenger" mediators of hormonal effects and functional significance.

Second Messenger Mechanism

 Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) as second messenger

Hormones  receptor  activate enzyme "adenyl cyclase"  activates the

formation of cAMP  activate a cascade of enzymes  cause different effects on
cells.

 Ca-Calmodulin as second messenger

Hormones  receptor  open channels for Ca ions  Ca diffused into cell and
bind with calmodulin  calmodulin is activated by conformational change 
activated calmodulin can cause multiple effects inside the cell in the same way that
cAMP does

Example: smooth muscle contraction

Ca ions  diffuse into smooth muscle membrane  bind with calmodulin
 Ca-calmodulin complex activates myosin kinase (enzyme)  cause the
phosphorylation of myosin head of smooth muscle  formation of cross-
bridge for muscle contraction

 Membrane phospholipid breakdown product as second messenger

Hormones  receptor  activates enzyme phospholipase C attached to the inside

projection of the receptor  cause phospholipids in the cell membrane to split into
small substances (such as inositol trisphosphate and diacylglycerol) that serve as "second
messenger"

Objective 75-4: Recognize the magnitude of hormonal concentrations in the

blood, their means of measurement, and their significance.

Measurement of Hormone Concentration in Blood

 Concentration of hormones is extremely low in the blood

- Range from few picograms (mμg)/ml of blood to a few micrograms (μg)/ml

- Rate of secretion of hormones is also extremely small, measured in

microgram (μg)/day or milligrams (mg)/day
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- Impossible to measure hormones by usual chemical means

 Measured by the method of radioimmunoassay (RIA)

 Make an antibody in large quantities in lower animals that is highly specific for
the hormone to be measured

 A small quantity of that antibody is mixed simultaneously with

(1) an amount of fluid containing the hormone to be measured,
(2) an amount of the purified standard hormone tagged with a radioactive
isotope (its concentration is known)

 The natural hormone and the radioactive standard hormone compete for the
binding sites of the antibody. In the competing process, the number of each of the
two hormones (natural and radioactive) that bind with the antibody is proportional
to its concentration

 After the binding has reached equilibrium, the antibody bound with hormones is
separated from the remainder of the solution, and the amount of radioactive
hormone bound with antibody is measured by radioactive counting techniques
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 The concentration of the natural hormone can be determined by comparing the

radioactive counts recorded with a standard curve that correlates the percentage of
antibody bound with radioactive hormones to the concentration of the natural
hormone to be measured

 The higher the percentage of bound radioactive hormone, the lower the
concentration of the natural hormone to be measured

Objective 75-5: Define some general concepts of how hormone levels are
controlled in the body.

Control of Secretion Rate

 Hormone secretion rate is mostly controlled by internal control system through negative
feedback control mechanism.

 Glands have natural tendency to over-secrete their hormones

 The over-secretion causes more effect on target organs
 In turn, target organ “over-functions”
 The information of activity of the organ is fed back to the gland
 Causing a negative effect on gland to slow down secretion rate

 If target organ responds to hormone very poorly, the gland will secrete more and more its
hormone until the organ eventually reaches to the level of activity to slow down the secretion
rate at the expense of excessive secretion of hormone

 The number of receptors in the target cell varies from day to day even from minutes to
minutes. Because during the course of their function the receptor can be
 inactivated or activated,
 destroyed or produced

Down-regulation of receptors can occur

 Binding of hormone with its receptors causes decrease of the number of active receptors.
This is called down-regulation

 Chronic over-stimulation will lead to unresponsive receptor

 Increase or decrease of concentration of hormones in blood depends on

- Secretion rate of hormone,

- Removal rate of hormone from the blood (metabolic clearance rate)