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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Dissection and Coronal Slice Preparation of Developing Mouse Pituitary Gland
Published on: November 16, 2017
Molecular physiology of pituitary development: signaling and transcriptional networks
Xiaoyan Zhu1, Anatoli S Gleiberman, Michael G Rosenfeld
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department and School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USA. xizhu@ucsd.edu
Abstract:
The pituitary gland is a central endocrine organ regulating basic physiological functions, including growth, the stress response, reproduction, metabolic homeostasis, and lactation. Distinct hormone-producing cell types in the anterior pituitary arise from a common ectodermal primordium during development by extrinsic and intrinsic mechanisms, providing a powerful model system for elucidating general principles in mammalian organogenesis. The central purpose of this review is to inspect the integrated signaling and transcriptional events that affect precursor proliferation, cell lineage commitment, terminal differentiation, and physiological regulation by hypothalamic tropic factors.
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