Short Report
A comprehensive curated resource for follicle stimulating hormone signaling
1 Institute of Bioinformatics, International Tech Park, Bangalore-560 066, India
2 Department of Biotechnology, Kuvempu University, Shankaraghatta-577 451, India
3 Department of Molecular Endocrinology, National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (ICMR), Mumbai-400 012, India
4 Centre of Excellence in Bioinformatics, School of Life Sciences, Pondicherry University, Puducherry-605014, India
5 Amrita School of Biotechnology, Amrita University, Kollam-690525, India
6 Manipal University, Madhav Nagar, Manipal-576104, India
7 Laboratory for Immunogenomics, Research Unit for Immunoinformatics, RIKEN Research Center for Allergy and Immunology, 1-7-22 Suehiro-cho, Tsurumi-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa 230-0045, Japan
8 RajaRajeshwari Medical College and Hospital, Bangalore-560074, India
9 McKusick-Nathans Institute of Genetic Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
10 Department of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
11 Department of Pathology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
12 Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
BMC Research Notes 2011, 4:408 doi:10.1186/1756-0500-4-408
Published: 13 October 2011Abstract
Background
Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is an important hormone responsible for growth, maturation and function of the human reproductive system. FSH regulates the synthesis of steroid hormones such as estrogen and progesterone, proliferation and maturation of follicles in the ovary and spermatogenesis in the testes. FSH is a glycoprotein heterodimer that binds and acts through the FSH receptor, a G-protein coupled receptor. Although online pathway repositories provide information about G-protein coupled receptor mediated signal transduction, the signaling events initiated specifically by FSH are not cataloged in any public database in a detailed fashion.
Findings
We performed comprehensive curation of the published literature to identify the components of FSH signaling pathway and the molecular interactions that occur upon FSH receptor activation. Our effort yielded 64 reactions comprising 35 enzyme-substrate reactions, 11 molecular association events, 11 activation events and 7 protein translocation events that occur in response to FSH receptor activation. We also cataloged 265 genes, which were differentially expressed upon FSH stimulation in normal human reproductive tissues.
Conclusions
We anticipate that the information provided in this resource will provide better insights into the physiological role of FSH in reproductive biology, its signaling mediators and aid in further research in this area. The curated FSH pathway data is freely available through NetPath (http://www.netpath.org webcite), a pathway resource developed previously by our group.
