Endocrine Abstracts

Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) have been demonstrated to impact tumorigenesis in a variety of tumors. As for the adrenal cortex, quantitative real time PCR analyses revealed down-regulation of various BMPs (e.g. BMP2, BMP5) in tissue samples from adrenocortical carcinoma and adrenocortical tumor cell lines in comparison to normal adrenal glands. Other members, by contrast, as seen for BMP6 remained unaltered. Integrity of BMP dependent pathways in the investigated cell lin...

Introduction: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (panNETs) are often inoperable at diagnosis. The mTORC1 inhibitor everolimus is approved for the treatment of advanced NETs. Unfortunately, the development of resistance against everolimus limits its clinical efficacy.Aim: Our aim was to establish an everolimus-resistant panNET cell line to find common mechanisms of resistance.Methods: Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor cells (BON1) were ...

Cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) are crucial for the cell cycle regulation and alterations of the cell cycle and its regulators are often observed in human malignancies. CDK4/6 in particular orchestrates the G1 phase progression and the G1/S transition. Here we investigated the in vitro effects of the CDK4/6 inhibitor LEE001(Novartis, Basel) on the human neuroendocrine tumor (NET) cell lines BON1, QGP1 and NCI-H727. The cells were treated with different concentrations ...

The factors triggering pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor (PanNET) progression are largely unknown. Here we investigated the role and mechanisms of the sumoylation enhancing protein RSUME in PanNET tumorigenesis. Immunohistochemical studies showed that RSUME is strongly expressed in normal human pancreas, in particular in β-cells. RSUME expression is reduced in insulinomas and is nearly absent in other types of PanNETs suggesting a role in PanNET tumorigenesis. In human panc...

The recreational use of cannabis is becoming more widespread since many countries, including parts of Europe, are currently discussing legalisation. Moreover, the medical use of cannabinoids is already established and has many indications such as multiple sclerosis-induced spasticity or supportive therapy in the case of tumour-associated pain or loss of weight or appetite. However, the effects of cannabinoids on tumour growth still remain largely unexplored in many tumour enti...