LKB1 suppresses androgen synthesis in a mouse model of hyperandrogenism via IGF-1 signaling.

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a major cause of anovulatory sterility in women, and most PCOS patients exhibit hyperandrogenism (HA). Liver kinase b1 (LKB1) is a tumor suppressor that has recently been reported to be involved in PCOS. However, the mechanism by which LKB1 affects HA has not previously been elucidated. We report here that ovarian LKB1 levels are significantly decreased in a female mouse model of HA. Moreover, we report that LKB1 expression is inhibited by elevated androgens via activation of androgen receptors. In addition, LKB1 treatment was observed to suppress androgen synthesis in theca cells and promote estrogen production in granulosa cells by regulating steroidogenic enzyme expression. As expected, LKB1 knockdown inhibited estrogen levels and enhanced androgen levels, and LKB1-transgenic mice were protected against HA. The effect of LKB1 appears to be mediated via IGF-1 signaling. In summary, we describe here a key role for LKB1 in controlling sex hormone levels.

Digital signal processor-based high-precision on-line Voigt lineshape fitting for direct absorption spectroscopy.

To realize on-line high-accuracy measurement in direct absorption spectroscopy (DAS), a system-on-chip, high-precision digital signal processor-based on-line Voigt lineshape fitting implementation is introduced in this paper. Given that the Voigt lineshape is determined by the Gauss full width at half maximum (FWHM) and Lorentz FWHM, a look-up table, which covers a range of combinations of both, is first built to achieve rapid and accurate calculation of Voigt lineshape. With the look-up table and raw absorbance data in hand, Gauss-Newton nonlinear fitting module is implemented to obtain the parameters including both the Gauss and Lorentz FWHMs, which can be used to calculate the integrated absorbance. To realize the proposed method in hardware, a digital signal processor (DSP) is adopted to fit the Voigt lineshape in a real-time DAS measurement system. In experiment, temperature and H2O concentration of a flat flame are recovered from the transitions of 7444.36 cm(-1) and 7185.6 cm(-1) by the DSP-based on-line Voigt lineshape fitting and on-line integral of the raw absorbance, respectively. The results show that the proposed method can not only fit the Voigt lineshape on-line but also improve the measurement accuracy compared with those obtained from the direct integral of the raw absorbance.