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Horm Metab Res 1979; 11(1): 26-29
DOI: 10.1055/s-0028-1092676
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© Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York

The Identification of Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH) in Hypothalamic and Extrahypothalamic Loci of the Human Nervous System

M. J. Kubek [*] , J. F. Wilber , J. E. Leesthma
  • Center for Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Nutrition, and the Departments of Medicine and Pathology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, USA
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Publication History

Publication Date:
17 December 2008 (online)

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Abstract

Immunoreactive-like GnRH activity has been identified in 24 of 26 separate loci of the human central nervous system. Tissues, secured from 5 brains at autopsy, were dissected, extracted sequentially with 2N and glacial acetic acid, lyophilized, and eluted in buffered saline for GnRH determinations by specific radioimmunoassay. GnRH concentrations (ng/mg protein) ranged from 8.96 (infundibulum) to 0.001 (cerebellum. middle lobe). Highest extrahypothalamic concentrations of GnRH were found in mamillary body (0.076) and thalamus (0.022). Extrahypothalamic GnRH was identical to synthetic and hypothalamic GnRH by criteria of immunoidentity. No post-mortem GnRH peptidolysis, evaluated experimentally in rats, was evident between 0 and 16 hrs in intact tissues maintained at 4 °C. These data suggest that GnRH is distributed throughout regions of the human brain outside the hypothalamus and suggest new, non-endocrine functions for GnRH in the human CNS, analogous the those reported recently for GnRH in experimental animals.

Key words

Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone - Peptides - Hypothalamic Hormones

1 Present Address, Department of Anatomy, Indiana University Medical Center, 1100 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis, Indiana 46202