The study, funded in part by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), appears in the October 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. GPR54 is located on an autosomal chromosome (a chromosome that is not a sex chromosome). The study also was funded by the National Center for Research Resources and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, both at NIH.
"The discovery of GPR54 is an important step in understanding the elaborate sequence of events needed for normal sexual maturation," said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). "Findings from this study may lead not only to more effective treatments for individuals who fail to enter puberty normally, but may provide insight into the causes of other reproductive disorders as well."
Puberty begins when a substance known as gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) is secreted from a part of the brain called the hypothalamus. Individuals who fail to reach puberty because of inherited or spontaneous genetic mutations are infertile.
"The discovery of GPR54 as a gatekeeper for puberty across species is very exciting" said the study's first author, Stephanie B. Seminara, of the Reproductive Endocrine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston and a member of the NICHD-funded, Harvard-wide Endocrine Sciences Center. "In the future, this work might lead to new therapies for the treatment of a variety of reproductive disorders."
The GPR54 gene contains the information needed to make a receptor. Receptors and the molecule
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Contact: Bob Bock or Marianne Duffy
rb96a@nih.gov
301-496-5133
NIH/National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
22-Oct-2003