Endocrine Abstracts

Glioblastoma (GBM; grade IV astrocytoma) is the one of the most malignant and lethal endocrine-related cancers worldwide. Current standard treatment consists of surgery followed by radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy; however, this is only a palliative approach with a mean post-operative survival of scarcely ~12-15 months. Therefore, the identification of novel therapeutic targets to treat this devastating pathology is urgently needed. In this context, the truncated splicing-vari...

Lung neuroendocrine neoplasms (LungNENs) are highly heterogeneous tumors, which are classified by the WHO according to their histological grade into low grade: Typical Carcinoids (TC) and intermediate grade Atypical Carcinoids (AC), and high-grade: Large Cell Neuroendocrine Carcinoma (LCNEC) and Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC). Recently, a number of studies have tried to untangle the molecular features that define each subtype by applying different approaches, including genomic,...

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) represent a heterogeneous group of malignancies with increasing incidence worldwide, due in part to enhanced awareness and diagnosis improvements. Surgery is often effective for local disease, whereas disseminated or metastatic disease require pharmacological treatment, which is not always successful. Pancreatic (Pan-NETs) and pulmonary (Lung-NETs) neuroendocrine tumors frequently express somatostatin receptors (SSTs), providing the target for trea...

Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas (PPGL) are infrequent neuroendocrine neoplasms, which develop metastases or aggressive behaviour in 25 % patients. They can be classified into three clusters according to their molecular features; nevertheless, these differences may not stratify patients according to their prognosis. The dysregulation of the splicing process has emerged as a novel feature shared by most cancers, which is associated with an aggressive phenotype in several tu...

Objective and methods: Recent studies suggest that altered alternative splicing and, consequently, appearance of an abnormal splicing pattern and even of aberrant/oncogenic splicing-variants, represent a common molecular feature of most tumor pathologies, including Pituitary Neuroendocrine Tumors (PitNETs). However, the putative alteration, pathophysiological role and potential therapeutic utility of splicing machinery components [i.e. spliceosome-components (SCs) and splicing...

There is increasing evidence that alterations in alternative splicing can be linked to key tumor features in cancer. Dysregulations in the splicing machinery constitute the underlying cause in many of these alterations and, consequently, splicing and its control are emerging as a novel and transversal cancer hallmark, due to its association with different dysfunctions of tumor cells. In line with this, we discovered the existence of aberrantly spliced variants of somatostatin ...

Somatostatin (SST)-system is a pleiotropic hormonal system composed by several ligands/receptors that is involved in the regulation of multiple pathophysiological functions. Specifically, certain components of the SST-system are dysregulated in several endocrine-related cancer types compared to control tissues, wherein these alterations seem to influence their development/progression. However, the presence and functional role of neuronostatin (NST) and its putative G-protein c...

Dysregulation of the splicing machinery is emerging as a novel cancer hallmark due to its association with multiple dysfunctions in tumor cells. An inappropriate function of the components of this machinery (spliceosome) could be primarily linked with the generation of tumor-associated aberrant splicing variants. In line with this, we have previously reported that overexpression of aberrantly spliced variants of somatostatin receptor 5 (sst5TMD4) and ghrelin (In1-ghrelin) is d...

: Hepatic steatosis is a common obesity-associated pathology characterized by the accumulation of fat within the liver, which can progress to liver fibrosis, cirrhosis and ultimately lead to hepatocellular carcinoma. Remarkably, obesity and cancer course with a profound dysregulation of the genetic expression patterns and, particularly, with the aberrant expression of splicing variants that could contribute to the aggressiveness and comorbidities of these pathologies. Since th...

: Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common cancer among men in developed countries. Unfortunately, the heterogeneity of this malignancy hinders the finding of new biomarkers and therapeutic tools. A potential factor contributing to PCa is alternative splicing, which can generate the appearance of oncogenic variants involved in PCa aggressiveness. Thus, we hypothesized that the alteration of the splicing machinery (spliceosome components and splicing factors (SFs)) could be ass...