Measuring The Metabolic Effects Of Thyroxine And Its Structural Analogues In Thyroidectomized Rats

Abstract

In 1961, C. S. Pittman of the Veterans Administration Hospital at Birmingham, Alabama, and S. B. Barker of the University of Alabama Medical Center were discussing, in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the great attention that researchers recently had been giving to structural analogues of thyroxine because of their interest in the "modus operand! of the thyroid hormones on the molecular level". They stated: "as these and other analogues are rapidly gaining considerable clinical usage, the metabolic study of these compounds has lagged behind". Today, it would be absurd to repeat that statement. Since Pittman and Barker, extensive information concerning the metabolic effects of thyroxine and its analogues has been accumulated. However, the technique by which this information has been accumulated has been monotonous. Oxygen-consumption assay of either tissue cultures or thyroldectomized animals treated with hormones has been the exclusive method for determining the metabolic effects of thyroid hormones. My purpose in this paper is to present a unique, alternative technique for measuring the metabolic effects of thyroxine and its structural analogues in thyroidectomized rats.