The genes that regulate pubertal timing in the general population are not well understood. Recently, genome-wide association studies have demonstrated that genetic variants near LIN28B associate with variation in pubertal timing in humans. To investigate where within the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian (HPO) axis Lin28b, and its homologue Lin28a, regulate pubertal timing, expression of these genes was assessed across the pubertal transition. The finding that Lin28a/b expression decreases only in the ovary suggests that the Lin28 pathway may exert its regulatory effects with respect to puberty in the ovary. Another aim of this thesis was to examine the effect of estrogen on Lin28b expression in immortalized GnRH neuronal cells, but the data remains equivocal and detailed future studies are needed to make definitive conclusions. The ovarian expression data lay the foundation for further studies using conditional knockout mice to verify the importance of the tissue and age specific developmental pattern that was identified.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/30616 |
| Date | 07 December 2011 |
| Creators | Grieco, Anthony |
| Contributors | Palmert, Mark R. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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