The Mechanism of Damping of the Serum Thyroxine and Triiodothyronine Levels Caused by Increasing Thyrotropin Dosage in Mice

The time course of the effect of bovine TSH (bTSH) on serum concentrations of thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3) was measured in the normal mouse. The basal, unstimulated levels were 3.2+/-1.1 mug/100 ml T4 and 104+/-25 ng/100 ml T3 (mean+/-SD). With doses of bTSH from 0.5 to 100 mU the peak levels of the thyroid hormones were only 2.6 and 1.8 times the basal level for T4 and T3, respectively. With increasing doses of bTSH there was a proportional prolongation of the increased serum levels of thyroid hormones, i.e., about 2 h for 0.5mU to 12 h for 100 mU TSH. The integrated response with time was linearly related to the log dose. This would suggest a control mechanism which prevents excessive concentration of thyroid hormones in the serum. This pattern of response to TSH differs somewhat from that obtained by following radioiodine release in the McKenzie type bio-assay. To avoid the problems of changing blood concentrations of thyroid hormones and TSH, the release of T4 and T3 from the mouse thyroid was measured in vitro. The secretion increased with bTSH concentrations in the range of 0.02-0.8 mU/ml for T4 and 0.02-0.4 mU/ml for T3. The maximal response was 8.8+/-0.5 ng T4/3h/thyroid and 3.6+/-0.3 ng T3/3h/thyroid as against the basal secretion of 2.4+/-0.2ng T4 and 0.8+/-0.1 ng T3 (mean+/-SEM). Further in crease in bTSH concentration was associated with a decreased rate of thyroid hormone release. Thyroidal cAMP accumulation was enhanced with increasing bTSH concentration, even when there was a decrease in secretion. The dichotomy in the dose-response pattern between the two parameters indicated that the effect of high TSH concentrations on the release was induced at a step beyond cAMP accumulation. This was corroborated by the similar pattern of release induced by increasing concentration of DBcAMP. These findings indicate the existence of an intrathyroidal autoregulatory mechanism which prevents excess increase of thyroid hormone levels in the blood.