Running from Hippo

Like a manager in a tiny office at the heart of a huge factory, the pituitary gland nestled at the base of the brain oversees the whole body’s hormonal fluctuations. The little organ produces hormones and regulates the body’s other glands, and any malfunction can result in a wide range of diseases, including tumours. Recent research identified a run of signals known at the ‘Hippo pathway’ playing an important – but unclear – role. A new study has shown it is essential for pituitary gland development in mouse embryos, and regulates the pool of starter cells that produce specialised hormone production cells. If the Hippo pathway is allowed to run out of control, this group of cells gets out of hand and proteins linked to aggressive tumours (red in the pituitary gland section pictured) start to accumulate. Understanding the pituitary’s processes is the first step in developing new treatments for diseases that originate therein.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Emily J. Lodge and colleagues
• Centre for Craniofacial and Regenerative Biology, Faculty of Dentistry, Oral & Craniofacial Sciences, King’s College London, London, UK
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Research published in eLife, March 2019