Endocrine Abstracts

To elucidate the functional role of IGFBP-2 for in vivo skeletal muscle growth and function, skeletal muscle cellularity and metabolism as well as body growth and composition have been studied in a transgenic mouse model overexpressing IGFBP-2. Postnatal growth rate of transgenic mice (n=20) was clearly reduced from day 21 of age by 6–8% (P<0.05) compared with non-transgenic controls (n=37). At the final day of live (day 72 of age) body pro...

Cross-talk between adipose tissue and skeletal muscle via endocrine and paracrine mechanisms may be important in determining nutrient partitioning and lean-to-fat ratio. Such interactions could be mediated in part by adipokines secreted from adipose tissue. Little is known, however, about the role of adipokines in influencing growth and development of skeletal muscle.The aim of this study was to determine the direct effects of leptin and adiponectin on t...

Background: Thyroid hormones increase both serum levels of cystatin C and renal glomerular filtration rate (reflected by lower serum creatinine); the latter is considered the main determinant of cystatin C levels. A potential explanation for this apparently discrepant finding is an increased production, rather than a decreased clearance, of cystatin C. To study whether 3,3′,5-triiodo-L-thyronine (T3) increases the production of cystatin C in a w...

Aims/hypothesis: Several data have shown the association between diabetes type 2 (DM2) and transcription factor 7-like 2 (TCF7L2) gene polymorphisms, in several and different ethnical populations. Although the pathophysiology is not completely clear, it seems that beta and alpha cell functions are abnormal. Up to these days there is no clinical data showing association between TCF7L2 gene polymorphism allele rs7903146 T and beta cell insulin and C-peptide contents in DM2 patie...

Background: IGF-1 is a ubiquitous growth factor that has been shown to play an important role in breast tissue development and tumorigenesis. Previously we have shown that IGF-1 expression is lost in approximately 1/3 of breast carcinomas. It is unsure whether this indicates the existence of a subset of breast cancers that may behave differently clinically and on a molecular level. Aims: To assess and quantify the mRNA expression of (i) Cox-2 and c-myc, genes imp...

Cross-talk between adipose tissue and skeletal muscle could be mediated in part by adipokines secreted from adipose tissue. Previously, we observed that adiponectin but not leptin decreased DNA synthesis rate in proliferating porcine myoblasts in growth factor-supplemented serum-free medium (GF-SFM) after 48-h exposure (Will et al. 2012). To further elucidate the effects of adiponectin and leptin on muscle cell growth and their mode of action, this study was conducted...

Imbalanced maternal nutrition during pregnancy can cause fetal growth retardation, metabolic changes and alterations of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) system in the offspring. Here, we investigated the effects of maternal low and high protein diets during pregnancy in pigs on materno-fetal HPA regulation and expression of glucocorticoid receptor (GR), mineralocorticoid receptor (MR), 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase 1 and 2 (11β-HSD1 and 11β-...

It has been reported that Ang II induces the growth of MCF-7 breast cancer cells (Muscella et al., J Endocrinol 173, 315-323, 2002). Here we have examined the signalling pathways evoked by Ang II in MCF-7. Ang II did not change the concentration of intracellular calcium but induced the cytosol-to-membrane translocation of atypical protein kinase C zeta (PKC-zeta). Ang II dose-dependently induced c-fos (mRNA and protein) and enhanced the phosphorylation state of extracellular s...

Background: PCO is more prevalent among SA than C and IR is central to its pathogenesis; whilst Type 2 diabetes (DM) is commoner in SA. We compared the phenotype and IR in South Asian and Caucasians with PCOS.Methods: Comparison of consecutive anovular PCOS; 47 SA and 36 Caucasians and their age and weight matched controls (11 SA and 22 Cs).Results: SA presented earlier (age 26 plus/minus 4 v 30.1 plus/minus 5, p = 0.005). BMI (24....

Interferon alpha (IFNα) and Ribavirin combination therapy effectively eradicates Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in up to 80% of patients. Transient thyroid dysfunction (TD) (>80% hypothyroidism) usually due to a destructive thyroiditis has been recognised to occur in up to 25% of patients treated in Italy, Japan and Australia. However, data are lacking in a UK cohort and no standardised protocol for testing of thyroid function testing exists. The aim of this study was to det...