Endocrine Abstracts

Insulin is a major endocrine hormone able to regulate whole-body energy disposal and lipid metabolism. Particularly, insulin stimulates the renewal of the adipose tissue (AT) via activation of insulin receptors (IR) consisting of two splicing variants: a short isoform (IRa) involved in cell proliferation, and a long isoform (IRb) mainly implicated in metabolic responses. The contribution of these isoforms to the AT expansion is still poorly understood. We investigated the expr...

Hepatocytes are both insulin sensitive and the primary site for synthesis of SHBG. Thus, it is possible that a condition of hepatic insulin resistance may impair hepatic synthesis of SHBG. In this study, we assessed SHBG circulating levels after 30 days of a very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) based on high-biological value protein preparations diet (ISOMED) and natural food in a cohort of insulin-resistant obese male subjects. Moreover, we investigated the effects of expo...

Low levels of testosterone and SHBG levels are often present in subjects with overweight and obesity; functional hypogonadism further alters the metabolic balance and may drag subjects in a sort of vicious cycle, reducing exercise and energy expenditure. The very low-calorie ketogenic diet (VLCKD) has been reported to rapidly reduce body weight, glycaemia and insulinemia, but its effects on total testosterone (TT) and SHBG levels are less clear. We thus aimed to evaluate the r...

With the increasing use of thyroid ultrasound (US), the recognition of thyroid nodules in a large proportion of apparently healthy subjects has become common. Moreover, some autopsy series have shown that papillary cancer measuring 10 mm or less, the so-called papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC), is a very frequent incidental finding. Because PTMC is being increasingly discovered, it is important to ascertain whether PTMC may exhibit heterogenous clinical and pathological ...

Introduction: E2F1 regulates the expression of genes required for cell cycle progression and apoptosis. miR-17-5p regulates expression of E2F1. Both miR-17-5p and E2F1 have been described deregulated in cancer but they have been scarcely studied in human pituitary neuroendocrine tumours (PitNETs).The aim of the present study was to find biomarkers of aggressiveness in PitNETs and report the correlation between E2F1 and...

Gliomas are a common tumor type that affects the glial cells with common features of malignant tumors such as aggressive invasiveness, malignant transformation and vascular proliferation through the central nervous system. Currently, standard therapeutic strategies to treat malignant gliomas are not efficient having alow-rate survival (~12 months). Hence, there is a clear necessity for the identification of novel diagnostic/prognostic tools and therapeutic strategies to m...

Introduction: Gonadotroph tumours (GT) are the most common subtype of silent pituitary neuroendocrine tumours. The diagnosis of this subtype of tumours is established after surgery. There are no reliable markers of aggressiveness to predict their clinical course and, moreover, immunohistochemistry (IHC) usually classifies GT as null cell tumours. The aim of the present study was to correlate molecular, immunohistochemical and biochemical gonadotropin expression, to quantify th...