PHENOTYPIC CORRECTION OF DWARFISM BY CONSTITUTIVE EXPRESSION OF GROWTH-HORMONE

GH is normally secreted in a pulsatile fashion. When GH is deficient, dwarfism is the result in both rodents and humans. An adenoviral vecto r containing the rat GH complementary DNA was used to induce constitut ive GH expression in hepatocytes of GH-deficient lit/lit mice. Elevate d serum GH increased circulating insulin-like growth factor I concentr ations, corrected the growth deficiency, and normalized body compositi on. The results indicate that correction of the dwarf phenotype can be achieved by constitutive expression of GH at an ectopic site by gene transfer.