research
Thyroid hormone transport into liver cells: its (patho)physiological significance
- Publication date
- 9 December 1993
- Publisher
- In the experiments described in this thesis transmembrane transport of
thyroid hormones into liver cells is investigated, in particular the regulatory role
of this transport process in the bioavailability of thyroid hormones in
(patho )fysiological conditions.
This first chapter is an introduction to the studies described in Chapters
3-9. It opens with a short description of different aspects regarding thyroid
hormones, i.e. synthesis, transport in blood to the different organs, transport
into cells, nuclear binding and the different routes of intracellular metabolism.
Only the main issues will be discussed here. The isolated rat liver perfusion
system was used to study the transport process in most of our studies.
Therefore, this perfusion system is also described in this chapter and
compared to isolated rat hepatocytes in primary culture, in which many studies
on thyroid hormone transport have been performed. Furthermore, a twocompartment
model, which describes thyroid hormone kinetics in the liver
perfusion system, is dealt with here. At the end of the chapter the scope of the
thesis and a short overview of the questions that were addressed are
presented