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Updated: May 9, 2026

An Ex vivo Culture System to Study Thyroid Development
08:33

An Ex vivo Culture System to Study Thyroid Development

Published on: June 6, 2014

The role of Nrf2 in thyroid maturation and hormone synthesis in vertebrate models

Pierre Gillotay1, Sushant Bangru2, Benjamin Dassy1

  • 1Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Biologie Humaine et Moléculaire (IRIBHM), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium.

Life Science Alliance
|May 7, 2026
PubMed

In vertebrates, the thyroid gland synthesizes hormones that act on almost all tissues and are essential for normal growth and metabolism. Thyroid hormone production relies on iodination of thyroglobulin and requires H2O2, which contributes to a relatively high basal oxidative stress in the thyroid that must be tightly controlled to prevent cellular damage. The thyroid has efficient antioxidant and detoxifying enzymes that help it resist H2O2-induced oxidative stress maintaining the homeostasis necessary for hormone synthesis. By regulating the expression of genes involved in cellular detoxification, NRF2 acts as a master regulator of the cellular defense against oxidative stress. Using zebrafish embryos and mouse ESC-derived thyroid organoids, we generated nrf2a/Nrf2 loss-of-function and identified a common dyshormonogenesis phenotype. Although in zebrafish, the driving mechanisms are possibly related to thyroglobulin iodination defects, in thyroid organoids, it is likely due to a reduction in Tg production, consequently affecting folliculogenesis and thyroid hormone production.

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