adrenal cortex

Primary: The dog has immunemediated damage directly to the adrenal glands and especially to the outer layer or adrenal cortex.

Adrenal cortex glandular extracts usually derived from bovine and porcine animal sources have been used to treat stress-induced fatigue and exhaustion.

After this, the hypothalamus signals the pituitary gland to secrete adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which is responsible for activating the adrenal cortex, which then releases the hormones Cortisol, cortisone, and aldosterone.

Adenomas of the adrenal cortex are seen most frequently in old dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and sporadically in horses, cattle (Bos taurus), and sheep (Ovis aries) [6,9].

This increased ACTH induces overgrowth (hyperplasia) and overactivity of steroid producing cells in adrenal cortex.6,7 Cortisol deficiency in CAH is usually partial and not a very serious problem for these patients.

In fact, morphofunctional studies show that HFDs produce a significant increase in plasma cortisol levels and adrenal gland sizes (Auvinen et al.; Mokrani et al.); morphological changes characterized by an increase in the adrenal cortex due to hyplerplasia and/or hypertrophy of fasciculate area cells, with or without changes in the glomerular or medullary zone (Mokrani et al.; Swierczynska et al., 2015).

Histopathological examination showed that the tumor was an angiosarcoma containing hemorrhagic and necrotic areas that were infiltrating the adrenal cortex (Figure 3).

This is particularly problematic as diseases of the adrenal cortex and gonads usually require long periods of follow-ups, and samples collected over long intervals are more likely to be sent to different laboratories for analysis.

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare and aggressive malignancy of the adrenal cortex. Complete surgical resection is essential for localized tumours because ACC is highly resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Prolactin receptor expression in the adrenal cortex of several species supports an evolutionary role of prolactin in the stress response [29].

Besides obvious hyperplasia of the adrenal cortex, imaging exams did detect neither the female (uterus, the ovaries, and the Fallopian tubes) nor the male (prostate, seminal vesicles, and vas deferens) genitalia.

The different zones of the adrenal cortex cannot be clearly distinguished.

Some of the hypothesized etiologies include extramedullary hematopoiesis due to the autonomous proliferation of bone marrow cells transferred during embryogenesis, degeneration of epithelial tissues of the adrenal cortex, and adrenocortical cell metaplasia of the reticuloendothelial cells of the blood capillaries in response to stimuli such as necrosis, infection, or stress [1, 8-10].

ACTH, in turn, stimulates GC production in the zona fasciculata of the adrenal cortex Figure 1(a).

In this issue of Clinical Chemistry, two groups, one at King's College (3) and a second at the Mayo Clinic (4), highlight the potential applications of mass spectrometry-based steroid profiling ("steroidomics") for disorders of the adrenal cortex. With respective panels of 13 and 26 steroids, the outlined methods illustrate pathways for validation of omics-based signatures for diagnostics and stratification of disease for therapeutic intervention.