REVIEW  NEW INSIGHTS IN MOLECULAR HUMAN REPRODUCTION 

Minerva Ginecologica 2018 October;70(5):497-515

DOI: 10.23736/S0026-4784.18.04316-2

Copyright © 2018 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog therapeutics

Claire L. NEWTON ^{1, 2, 3}, Carmen RIEKERT ^{1, 2}, Robert P. MILLAR ^{1, 3, 4, 5} ✉

¹ Centre for Neuroendocrinology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa; ² Department of Immunology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa; ³ Centre for Integrative Physiology, Deanery of Biomedical Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; ⁴ Department of Physiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa; ⁵ Department of Integrative Biomedical Sciences, and Institute of Infectious Diseases and Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

Dysregulation at any level of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis results in, or aggravates, a number of hormone-dependent diseases such as delayed or precocious puberty, infertility, prostatic and ovarian cancer, benign prostatic hyperplasia, polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, lean body mass, as well as metabolism and cognitive impairment. As gonadotropin-releasing-hormone (GnRH) is an essential regulator of the HPG axis, agonist and antagonist analogs are efficacious in the treatment of these conditions. GnRH analogs also play an important role in assisted reproductive therapies. This review highlights the current and future therapeutic potential of GnRH analogs and upstream regulators of GnRH secretion.

KEY WORDS: Reproduction - Infertility - Gonadotropin-releasing hormone - GnRH receptor 3