Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: In rodents, dietary choline deficiency (CDD) results in macrovesicular hepatic steatosis and insulin sensitisation whereas methionine and choline deficient (MCDD) diets result in inflammatory fibrotic steatohepatitis with hepatic insulin resistance. The methyl donors choline and methionine are essential components of one-carbon metabolism. Our hypothesis was that methyl donor deficiency in mice would affect the expression of key genes in pathways of hepatic lipid...

Introduction: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become the most common form of chronic liver disease in children in association with the increasing prevalence of obesity. The underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood, however the accumulation of cholesterol and fatty acid lipotoxins plays an important role. 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (5hmC) is an epigenetic modification generated from 5-methylcytosine (5mC) by the Ten-eleven translocase isoenzymes (Tets). Tet ...

Background: Fetal glucocorticoid overexposure is associated with low birthweight and increased cardiovascular disease risk in the offspring. Such ‘programmed effects’ can be transmitted across generations through both male and female lines. Disruption of a germline epigenetic reprogramming pathway, characterised by genome-wide erasure and subsequent re-establishment of DNA methylation, may underpin the intergenerational transmission of programmed effects. We used a r...