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Establishment of a protocol to extend the lifespan of human hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma cells

  • Endocrine Methods and Techniques
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Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this study was to generate immortalized human anterior pituitary adenoma cells. Reliable cell models for the study of human pituitary adenomas are as yet lacking and studies performed so far used repeated passaging of freshly excised adenomas, with the attendant limitations due to limited survival in culture, early senescence, and poor reproducibility.

Methods & Results

We devised a technique based upon repeated co-transfections of two retroviral vectors, one carrying the catalytic subunit of human telomerase, hTERT, the other SV40 large T antigen. This approach extended the lifespan of cells derived from a human growth hormone-secreting adenoma up to 18 months while retaining morphology of primary cells, growth hormone synthesis and growth hormone secretion.

Conclusions

Our attempt represents the first demonstration of successful lifespan extension of human growth hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma cells via co-transfection of hTERT and SV40T and paves the way to future attempts to obtain stable cell lines.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research (PRIN2010TYCL9B_006) to AF, (PRIN2010TYCL9B_004) to FPG, (PRIN2010TYCL9B-001) and PRIN 2015 (PRIN2015ZHKFTA) to SC; and by the Italian Ministry of Health (GR 2011-02351557) to SN and (RF-2013-02356201) to SC.

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Author notes

    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Institute of Cell Biology and Neurobiology, National Research Council, Rome, 00143, Italy

      Aurora Aiello & Antonella Farsetti

    2. Institute of Medical Pathology, Università Cattolica, Rome, 00168, Italy

      Aurora Aiello, Simona Nanni & Alfredo Pontecorvi

    3. Neuroendocrinology Research Laboratory, Istituto Auxologico Italiano IRCCS, Milan, 20095, Italy

      Maria Francesca Cassarino, Antonella Sesta & Francesca Pecori Giraldi

    4. Deparment of Clinical Sciences & Community Health, Università di Milano, Milan, 20122, Italy

      Antonella Sesta & Francesca Pecori Giraldi

    5. Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Messina, Messina, 98125, Italy

      Francesco Ferraú

    6. Institute of Human Physiology, Università Cattolica, Rome, 00168, Italy

      Claudio Grassi

    7. Department of Neurosurgery, Ospedale San Raffaele IRCCS, Milan, 20132, Italy

      Marco Losa

    8. Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti, University of Messina, Messina, 98125, Italy

      Francesco Trimarchi

    9. Department of Childhood and Adulthood Human Pathology G. Barresi, University of Messina, Messina, 98125, Italy

      Salvatore Cannavò

    Authors
    1. Aurora Aiello
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    2. Maria Francesca Cassarino
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    3. Simona Nanni
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    4. Antonella Sesta
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    5. Francesco Ferraú
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    6. Claudio Grassi
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    7. Marco Losa
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    8. Francesco Trimarchi
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    9. Alfredo Pontecorvi
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    10. Salvatore Cannavò
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    11. Francesca Pecori Giraldi
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    12. Antonella Farsetti
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    Corresponding author

    Correspondence to Antonella Farsetti.

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    Conflict of interest

    The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

    Ethical approval

    All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

    Informed consent

    Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

    Additional information

    Aurora Aiello, Maria Francesca Cassarino and Simona Nanni contributed equally to this work.

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    Cite this article

    Aiello, A., Cassarino, M.F., Nanni, S. et al. Establishment of a protocol to extend the lifespan of human hormone-secreting pituitary adenoma cells. Endocrine 59, 102–108 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-017-1305-6

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    • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-017-1305-6

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