Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Patients with pituitary disease demonstrated Quality of Life (QoL) impairment. From other chronic diseases it is known that partners of patients also report impairments in QoL. Furthermore, it is observed that well-being of patients is associated with the well-being of their partners. To date, no data are available on the well-being of partners of patients with pituitary disease. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to explore well-being of partners of patie...

Background: An increasing number of studies assess quality of life (QoL) in patients with pituitary diseases. At present, available disease-specific QoL questionnaires do not completely cover the patient perspective of QoL. Furthermore, there are no disease-specific questionnaires available which inventories patient’s needs for help for impairments in QoL.Objective: To develop and validate a disease-specific QoL questionnaire for patients with pitui...

Background: Surgery is the preferred method of treatment for most pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs), particularly functional PNETs or those greater than 2 cm in largest dimension. Existing techniques include intraoperative ultrasound and manual palpation, both of which have inherent disadvantages such as poor resolution and low contrast against normal pancreatic tissue. This results in surgeons performing more demolitive resections, such as the Whipple procedure, when t...

Post-translational modifications of histones such as methylation, acetylation, and phoshorylation regulate chromatin structure and gene expression. However, phosphorylation of histone H3 at threonine 11 (H3T11ph) has not been linked to transcriptional regulation. Here we show that protein kinase C-related kinase 1 (PRK1) phosphorylates H3T11 upon ligand-dependent recruitment to androgen receptor (AR) target genes. PRK1 is pivotal to AR function since PRK1 knockdown by RNAi or ...

GPR120 is a rhodopsin-like GPCR that has a high affinity for long-chain saturated fatty acids 14–18 carbons and unsaturated fatty acids 16–22 carbons. The beneficial effects of GPR120 on β-cell function and glucose homeostasis have recently been reported however its role in glucagon secretion is unknown. GPR120 and glucagon expression were examined by double immunohistochemical studies using a glucagon secreting cell line (α-TC1.9) and pancreatic tissue fro...

Increased cortisol production (Cushing’s syndrome) is a rare disease that is sometimes very difficult to diagnose. Cyclical Cushing’s syndrome in particular is a major challenge. In this case of hypercortisolism, which is not always present, longitudinal diagnostic methods are advantageous. In the past, it has already been shown several times that the measurement of cortisol in the scalp hair shows significantly increased values in patients with Cushing’s syndro...

The AhR is a ligand dependent transcription factor which belongs to the bHLH-PAS family of transcription factors. Together with it partner factor ARNT the AhR mediates the biological of numerous ligands includings dietary factors, tryptophane derivatives and environmental pollutants like polyaromatic hydrocarbons and poly-chlorinated dioxins.Exposure to these environmental pollutants leads to, among other effects, disruption of hormonal signaling pathway...

Introduction: Clinical presentation of pituitary adenomas frequently involves pain, particularly headache, probably due to both structural and functional properties of the tumour.Design: In a retrospective analysis, we investigated clinical characteristics of pain in 277 patients with pituitary disease (n=81 acromegaly; n=50 Cushing’s disease; n=86 prolactinoma; n=60 non-functioning pituitary adenoma). Specific pa...

Estradiol (E2), produced by granulosa cells (GCs) of ovarian follicles, plays an essential role in folliculogenesis by controlling follicular development and selection. E2 actions are principally mediated by the two nuclear receptors, ERα and ERβ. These two receptors are differently expressed in GCs, with ERβ being predominant. After ligand binding and receptor dimerization, ERα and ERβ mainly regulate gene transcription through direct interaction with...

Introduction: Asprosin, a novel adipokine, is a circulating hormone mainly secreted by white adipose tissue. Asprosin is encoded by the penultimate 2 exons of the fibrillin 1 (FBN1) gene. Protein product of FBN1 is profibrillin-1, which undergoes a proteolytic cleavage by furin enzyme to produce mature fibrillin-1 and asprosin. Literature data indicated that asprosin is involved in the development of diabetes, obesity, cardiomyopathy, cancer, and polycystic o...