Thyrotropin-releasing hormone exerts rapid nuclear effects to increase production of the primary prolactin mRNA transcript.

This report directly documents that a polypeptide hormone can regulate specific gene expression as a consequence of increasing the levels of a primary genomic transcript. The regulation and expression of the prolactin gene was studied in a cell line (GH4) derived from a rat pituitary tumor. These cells respond to addition of the hypothalamic tripeptide, thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH; thyroliberin), by elevation of the levels of mature prolactin mRNA and increase in prolactin biosynthesis. The message induction is preceded by, and apparently consequential to, a comparable rapid increase in the nuclear prolactin RNA precursors, including the putative primary transcript.