Hormonal balance is critical to the proper functioning of the human body. Disruption of this balance, however, can cause numerous health problems, such as metabolic syndrome and obesity.
Now a new international study led by scientists at the Institut de recherches cliniques de Montréal (IRCM), affiliated with Université de Montreal, sheds light on an important element of the mechanisms underlying this balance.
‘’We want to understand how the exchange of signals between cells modulates gene expression, and how their disruption causes disease,’’ said the study’s lead author Jacques Drouin, director the IRCM’s molecular genetics research unit.
The pituitary gland is central to maintaining a person’s hormonal balance, as it produces the main hormones that control the other glands. In the pituitary, the various hormone-producing cells communicate with each other via dedicated ligands and receptors to balance the production of different hormones.
Little is known about these ligands, however, and it is precisely one of them that Drouin – a professor in UdeM’s Department of Biochemistry – identified in his laboratory at the IRCM as part of the study.
