Endocrine Abstracts

Human skin is a target tissue for circulating androgens released from the adrenal glands and gonads but local steroid production may also occur in human skin. StAR is a cholesterol transporter protein that controls the rate-limiting step in steroid synthesis and is regulated by steroidogenic factor (SF-1) in the adrenal glands. We have demonstrated the expression of StAR mRNA by RT-PCR in primary dermal papilla cells and in the immortalised human keratinocyte cell line HaCaT. ...

Introduction: Insulinomas are the most common, functioning, pancreatic neuro-endocrine tumours. The minority of patients <10% who present with metastatic disease have a median survival of <2 years.We present a case of a gentleman with a 30 years history of Multiple Endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1), which highlights the various modalities of treatment and the challenges from his progressive disease and marked symptomatic hypoglycaemia.<p clas...

Regulation of many pituitary-specific genes involves calcium signalling, yet the mechanisms and signalling molecules involved have yet to be established. CaMK's are expressed in a wide variety of tissues, and are known to modulate transcriptional regulators such as MAPK's and CREB. It is unclear as to which anterior pituitary cell types express CaMK's, or which isoforms are present. We have examined the presence and localisation of type II and IV CaMK's in alphaT3-1, LbetaT2 (...

We have previously proposed a central role for locally generated glucocorticoids in the periarticular and systemic osteoporosis seen in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Synovial fibroblasts (SFs) express the 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) enzyme and this expression increases dramatically with inflammation. Recently, production of DKK-1 (a Wnt signalling inhibitor known to inhibit bone formation) by SFs in response to inflammation has been proposed to ex...

Growth hormone (GH) has profound anabolic effects on bone, but its use as a treatment for patients with osteoporosis has only resulted in small increases in BMD. The low serum IGF-I demonstrated in men with idiopathic osteoporosis may be important in the aetiology of this disease and has been attributed to GH hypo-secretion, though there are conflicting reports of this. Insensitivity to the actions of GH has also been suggested. We studied the GH-IGF-I axis in otherwise health...

Background: The gut hormone PYY3-36 (PYY) is released into the circulation after eating and physiologically inhibits food intake. Obese and lean subjects are equally sensitive to this effect, however fasting levels of PYY are reduced in obese subjects.Methods: We investigated the postprandial PYY response and satiety response using a visual analogue scale (VAS) to 6 test meals of increasing calorie content in 20 lean and 20 obese subjects. We also infuse...

Background: Patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) have divergent survival, even when having the same site of primary tumor, and tumor stage and grade. 68Gallium (68Ga)-DOTATATE positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) is a sensitive imaging modality for detecting NETs. The purpose of this study was to determine whether 68Ga-DOTATATE PET/CT imaging has any prognostic utility in patients with NETs.Methods: One hundred and eighty-fou...