Hormone Involvement in Tissue Development, Physiology and Oncogenesis: A Preface to the Special Issue

Hormones, i.e., the products of specialized endocrine cells which spread throughout the body via the bloodstream, control the normal development and growth of organisms at the embryo-fetal stage and, in adult life, regulate, integrate, and coordinate a range of different physiological processes which concern virtually all body tissues. They exert their biological effects by interacting with either surface or intracellular receptors, thereby activating signalization pathways [1]. For example, steroid hormones, such as those released by the adrenal glands, testes and ovaries, once freely crossed through the plasmalemma, bind to receptors that act as ligand-dependent transcriptional regulators and influence the expression of a plethora of target genes responsible for diversified biological responses, including sexual differentiation, osmoregulation, metabolism and developmental roles in various fetal systems among others [2,3].