What is the difference between cortisol and corticosterone

The Nobel Prize-winning studies of Kendall and Reichstein used capital letters to name these steroids in an unambiguous way In their terminology, cortisol is Compound F, corticosterone is B, cortisone is E, and deoxycortisol is S and there are others. Although they do not impart any particular functional significance, the use of F for cortisol and B for corticosterone does eliminate any confusion between them. The increasing use of mass spectrometry to measure plasma, urinary, and salivary steroids makes this issue scientifically important Many adrenal steroid chemists, physiologists, and endocrinologists have begrudgingly lived with this annoying and imprecise state of affairs for years, although many still use B, F, and E because of their precision and lack of ambiguity 9 — 12 , To make things even more confusing, this study used CORT-KO to symbolize a cortistatin knockout mouse, and measured plasma corticosterone for which other authors in the same issue of Endocrinology use the abbreviation CORT.

Mamma mia! So now the abbreviation CORT is being used in the same journal to stand for a steroid AND a peptide that are completely unrelated to each other in structure and function.

Why a better abbreviation for cortistatin eg, CST to parallel SST for somatostatin was not insisted on by the reviewers of this article is not clear other than it could be confused with Central Standard Time in the United States! That would still be better than CORT.

It is important to reiterate that in the same issue of Endocrinology , CORT was used as an abbreviation for corticosterone in a really nice study on fast feedback 18 , an homage to Mary Dallman, a mentor to several generations of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis physiologists 19!

So, enough already! It is time for Endocrinology to take the lead and solve this problem. It is clear that an unambiguous abbreviation for cortistatin is needed. Those of us of a certain age would not mind. Regardless, it is clear that something definitive needs to be done. It may be preferable to write out the proper name of each steroid throughout a manuscript and in tables and figures, notwithstanding the extra space needed, or revert back to the original Compound letters for corticosteroids to honor the Nobel Prize for this work It is time for the editors of Endocrinology and other journals of The Endocrine Society to address this problem head on and decide on standard nomenclature and unambiguous abbreviations for corticosterone, cortisol, cortisone, and, now, cortistatin, to maximize clarity and precision.

Dallman MF. Adrenocortical function, feedback, and alphabet soup. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. Google Scholar. Physiological basis for the etiology, diagnosis, and treatment of adrenal disorders: Cushing's syndrome, adrenal insufficiency, and congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

Compr Physiol. Feedback control of vasopressin and corticotrophin secretion in conscious dogs: effect of hypertonic saline. J Endocrinol. Renal interstitial corticosterone and dehydrocorticosterone in conscious rats. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol. Inhibition of brain prostaglandin endoperoxide synthase-2 prevents the preparturient increase in fetal adrenocorticotropin secretion in the sheep fetus.

Steroidogenesis-adrenal cell signal transduction. Thus, whereas corticosterone declined dramatically during repeated restraints, it remained at the high level during unpredictable stress.

During forced swimming or heat stress, whereas cortisol increased to the highest level within 3 min. Taken together, results i confirmed the presence of cortisol in mouse serum and ii suggested that mouse serum cortisol and corticosterone are closely correlated in dynamics under different physiological or stressful conditions, but, whereas corticosterone was a more adaptation-related biomarker than cortisol during chronic stress, cortisol was a quicker responder than corticosterone during severe acute stress.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

It is known that stress enhances the activity of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal HPA axis and results in increased secretion of corticosteroids from the adrenal cortex. Cortisol and corticosterone are thus often used as biomarkers for stress and depressive disorders. Although corticosterone is considered the main glucocorticoid involved in regulation of stress responses in rodents, researchers often choose to detect cortisol for stress indicators in consideration of convenience and kits availability.

In fact, several studies have observed increased cortisol in plasma and adrenal glands of mice following stress [ 1 — 4 ], and many studies have even used cortisol as the index for stress activation in both mice [ 5 — 8 ] and rats [ 9 — 11 ]. Furthermore, it has been shown that cortisol exhibits much higher glucocorticoid potency than corticosterone [ 12 ]. However, whether cortisol is indeed present in laboratory rodents remains to be determined carefully in a special study using methods with greater specificity.

Studies in rabbits indicated that the ratio of cortisol to corticosterone might be influenced by some physiological conditions. For example, representation of cortisol was observed to be favored in fetal stages of development [ 13 ], after stimulation of adrenal secretion with adrenocorticotropin [ 14 — 17 ] as well as in vitro depending on concentration of some precursors needed for hormone biosynthesis [ 18 ].

In spite of the fact that corticosterone is the main glucocorticoid in plasma, prevalence of cortisol over corticosterone was revealed in some organs such as kidneys, spleen, heart and brain [ 19 ]. Furthermore, in wild species, both cortisol and corticosterone are formed in a species-specific extent and may vary in ratio according to the demands [ 20 , 21 ].

Taken together, the above review suggests that the representativeness of cortisol and corticosterone in rodents may be different under different physiological or stressful conditions. Thus, there is an urgent need for research on the dynamics and correlation of cortisol and corticosterone under different physiological or stressful conditions.

In this study, effects of estrous cycle stage, circadian rhythm, and acute and chronic repeated or unpredictable stressors of various severities on dynamics and correlation of plasma cortisol and corticosterone were examined in mice. Mouse care and use were conducted exactly in accordance with the guidelines and approved by the Animal Research Committee of the Shandong Agricultural University, P.

China Permit number: According to the guidelines of the committee, the animal handling staff including each post-doc, doctoral or masters student must be trained before using animals. Mice must be housed in a temperature-controlled room with proper darkness-light cycles, fed with a regular diet, and maintained under the care of the Experimental Animal Center, Shandong Agricultural University College of Animal Science and Vet Medicine.

In the present study, mice were sacrificed by decapitation. The only procedure performed on the dead animals was the collection of trunk blood. Unless otherwise specified, all chemicals and reagents used in the present study were purchased from Sigma Chemical Co. Mice of the Kunming strain were used at the age of 6—8 weeks.

The stage of the estrous cycle in female mice was determined by observing vaginal appearance [ 22 ] between and pm on each experimental day. Mice at different stages of the estrous cycle were then sacrificed to collect blood. Immediately following blood collection, the mice were examined again by observing vaginal lavage smears [ 23 ] to confirm their estrous cycle stages. Only blood collected from mice at the desired stage of the estrous cycle was used for hormone assays. Restraint of small animals is an experimental procedure developed for studying psychogenic stress [ 24 , 25 ].

According to Golub et al. To meet these requirements, we have established a new restraint system in which an individual mouse was put in a micro-cage, constructed by the authors, which was placed in an ordinary home cage. The oblong micro-cage was made of a steel-wire screen and measured 10 cm in width and 2 cm in height. The micro-cage offered the same photoperiod and controlled temperature as in the home cage for the unstressed animals.

While in the micro-cage, mice could move back and forth to some extent and could take food and water freely, although they could not turn around. Observations in our laboratory showed that the average intake of food and water did not differ significantly between unstressed control mice and mice restrained for different times using our restraint system data not shown. Thus, mice restrained in this system did not suffer from any physical suppression or pain.

For acute restraint treatment, mice were restrained uninterruptedly for up to 48 h starting from For repeated restraint treatment, each restraint session lasted for 8 h from am to pm and one session was conducted daily for up to 23 days. Control mice remained in their home cages during the time treated mice were stressed.

After swimming, the mice were toweled dry before being sacrificed for blood collection. For unpredictable stress treatment, mice were exposed to different stressors for two rounds of 4 days. Whereas the stressors lasting for 2 h were administered from to pm, the 8-h restraint took place from am to pm as described above.

In the present study, mice were always sacrificed at — pm for blood collection except for the experiment on the effect of the estrous cycle stage in which mice were always killed at — pm and for the experiment on the effect of circadian rhythm in which animals were killed at different times of day. The serum collected was divided into two parts; one for assay of cortisol and the other for assay of corticosterone.

The kit measures total cortisol in serum including the cortisol combined with corticosteroid-binding globulin CBG. The minimum level of detection for assays of cortisol was 0. The cross reactivity of the cortisol RIA kit for corticosterone is 0. To further evaluate the cross-reactivity of the cortisol RIA with corticosterone, corticosterone and cortisol standards or their mixtures at different concentrations were subjected to the radioimmunoassay kit.

The minimum level of detection of the kit was The kit measures total corticosterone in serum including the corticosterone combined with corticosteroid-binding globulin CBG. The cross reactivity of the corticosterone kit for cortisol is 0. The optical density O. The concentration of corticosterone was calculated according to the standard curves. To measure serum glucocorticoids, a liquid-liquid extraction was performed by adding 1. The organic layer was collected and transferred to a 15 ml tube.

This liquid-liquid extraction was repeated by adding another 1. Qualitative detection of the glucocorticoids in serum of mice was performed by reversed phase high performance liquid chromatography HPLC and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry ESIMS. The electrospray voltage was set at 4. The sheath and auxiliary gas are nitrogen and their pressures were set to 40 and 5 arbitrary units.

Peaks were identified based on the retention time of the standards and confirmed by comparison of the wavelength scan spectra set between nm and nm. At least three replicates were performed for each treatment. Percentage data were arc sine transformed and analyzed with ANOVA; a Duncan multiple comparison test was used to locate differences. The Statistical Package for Social Science software version Between and on each experimental day, female mice were examined for the stage of the estrous cycle by observing vaginal appearance.

Immediately following blood collection, the mice were examined again by observing vaginal lavage smears to confirm their estrous cycle stages. No significant changes were observed in either cortisol or corticosterone concentration throughout the estrous cycle Fig. However, contents of both hormones were higher at estrus than at other stages although the difference did not reach statistical significance.

Male mice were sacrificed at different times of day to collect blood for assay of cortisol and corticosterone. Concentrations of both cortisol and corticosterone remained constant from in the early morning to in the afternoon, but they went up significantly at in the evening Fig. Female mice were restrained for different times before being sacrificed to collect blood for hormone assays. Concentrations of both cortisol and corticosterone went up to the highest level within 1 h of restraint stress Fig.

However, whereas the level of cortisol stayed high up to 48 h of restraint, the level of corticosterone decreased significantly at 24 and 48 h of restraint.

Home Hormonal system endocrine. Hormones — cortisol and corticosteroids. Actions for this page Listen Print. Summary Read the full fact sheet. On this page. Role of cortisol in the body Cortisol can: help the body to manage stress convert protein into glucose to boost flagging blood sugar levels work in tandem with the hormone insulin to maintain constant blood sugar levels reduce inflammation contribute to the maintenance of constant blood pressure contribute to the workings of the immune system.

Conditions treated with corticosteroids A number of common conditions respond well when treated with corticosteroids cortisol-like medications including: skin disorders — such as psoriasis and dermatitis inflammatory diseases — such as asthma, ulcerative colitis, lupus and some forms of arthritis cancer — particularly cancers related to the immune system, such as leukaemia and lymphoma organ transplant — corticosteroids are used to inhibit the body's immune response so that a transplanted organ is not rejected Addison's disease — an autoimmune disorder that stops the adrenal glands from making sufficient hormones, including cortisol.

Types of corticosteroids The type of corticosteroids administered depends on the person's condition. Where specialists use synthetic forms to treat these disorders, treatment forms include: creams — applied to the affected areas of the skin tablets — dosage varies, but is generally kept to the lowest dose possible injections — injecting straight into the affected joint, which prevents many of the side effects that occur with oral medication taken by mouth inhaler — administered to treat inflammation in the lungs or sinuses.

Side effects of corticosteroids As cortisol acts on so many organs and tissues of the body, people treated with corticosteroids may experience unwanted side effects.

Some of the more common side effects of cortisol-like drugs include: thin skin susceptibility to bruising high or increased blood pressure susceptibility to infections build-up of fat around the face, chest and abdomen thinning of the limbs osteoporosis thinning of the bones leading to bone fractures, particularly in the spine fluid retention oedema diabetes.

Corticosteroid-induced osteoporosis Corticosteroids can cause a loss of bone density in men and women, particularly among postmenopausal women. Symptoms of osteoporosis can include: bone fractures severe back pain kyphosis hunching of the upper back loss of height.

Managing the side effects of corticosteroids Suggestions to manage the side effects of cortisol treatment include: Reduce the daily dose under strict medical supervision. Seek immediate treatment for any infection. Use vitamin D and calcium supplements. Use other medications and do weight-bearing exercise to maintain bone strength.

Symptoms of cortisol insufficiency can include: fatigue nausea and vomiting low blood pressure, particularly when standing up from a sitting or lying position orthostatic hypotension low blood sugar shock coma.

Symptoms of Cushing's syndrome may include: weight gain in the face, abdomen and chest wasting of the limbs a fatty hump between the shoulders flushed face high blood pressure skin changes — such as thin skin, easily bruised, slow healing and ulcers mood swings weakened bones irregular or absence of periods.

Where to get help Your doctor.