Endocrine Abstracts

Non-functioning pituitary-adenomas (NFPAs) represent the most common pituitary tumor-type. To date, there are not clinical, biochemical, anatomo-pathological, immuno-histochemical or molecular parameters useful to predict their remission. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the potential relationship between the clinical, biochemical and pathological characteristics of patients with NFPAs, the expression profile of these tumours and the clinical outcomes during th...

Pituitary adenomas (PA) comprise a commonly underestimated pathology in terms of incidence and associated morbimortality. To date, somatostatin and dopamine analogs represent the main medical treatment, but an appreciable subset of patients are resistant or poorly responsive to these drugs. Therefore, the search for new approaches to control tumor growth and/or hormone secretion is crucial. Biguanides such as metformin (MF; commonly used to treat type-2 diabetes), phenformin (...

Pituitary adenomas (PA) comprise a commonly underestimated pathology in terms of incidence and associated morbi-mortality. Although somatostatin analogs and dopamine antagonists constitute the main medical treatments for PAs, an appreciable subset of patients are resistant or poorly responsive to these drugs and hence is crucial the search for new therapies. Biguanides such as metformin (MF; commonly used to treat type-2 diabetes), phenformin (PF) and buformin (BF) have been s...

Prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MetS) and type-2 Diabetes (T2D) is growing dramatically worldwide. Loss of phenotypic flexibility, i.e. the difficulty to cope with different stressors to maintain metabolic homeostasis, contributes critically to the development of MetS/T2DM. Thus, it is essential to identify the key modifiers of phenotypic plasticity that define an individual’s susceptibility to develop T2DM. In this scenario, emerging evidence indicates that, under adve...

Somatostatin is a pleiotropic neuropeptide that governs multiple biological targets, including tumor cell function, through a family of G protein-coupled receptors with 7-transmembrane domains (TMD), named sst1-5. However, we recently discovered sst5TMD4, an aberrantly spliced, truncated (only 4-TMDs) sst5-variant displaying unique molecular/functional features. sst5TM4 is overexpressed in various endocrine-related tumors exacerbating their malignant characteristics. Here, we ...

Obesity, a disease that is growing at epidemic proportions worldwide, is caused by a combination of genetic and lifestyle factors. One of the most common pathologies associated with obesity is hepatic steatosis, an accumulation of fat within the liver that can progress to liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and ultimately lead to hepatocellular carcinoma. There is emerging evidence that alternative mRNA splicing, the key mechanism providing transcript and protein diversity, is dysregul...

Dietary fat influences systemic inflammatory status, which, in turn, determines the progression of age-associated diseases. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) comprise a subset of white blood cells placed at the crossroad between diet and inflammation, in that they play a key role in the immune/inflammatory system and their gene expression pattern is influenced by diet. Since the somatostatin (SST), cortistatin (CORT) and ghrelin systems have been shown to modulate the...

Prostate cancer (PCa) is the most common tumor pathology in men worldwide. The medical treatments currently used as first-line therapy after surgery are anti-androgens like abiraterone or enzalutamide, which, unfortunately, fail to stop the disease in a high percentage of cases, resulting in progression towards aggressive castration-resistant PCa. Therefore, new therapeutic tools to manage PCa are urgently needed. Biguanides and statins, two types of drugs commonly used in met...

Aim: To assess whether E-cadherin expression levels in somatotropinomas were associated with the response to somatostatin analogues (SSAs) therapy in patients with acromegaly.Methods: In this retrospective study, 56 acromegaly patients that underwent transsphenoidal surgery were evaluated. All patients were treated preoperatively with SSAs (octreotide or lanreotide) for at least 6 months. Responsiveness to SSAs was evaluated by percent IGF-1 reduction af...

Pituitary adenomas (PA), as well as pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas, are neuroendocrine tumors that arise from cells derived from the pituitary, adrenal and extra-adrenal nervous system, respectively. Recent studies have identified a growing series of susceptibility genes for these pathologies. Some genes may be associated with the development of both types of pathologies, as it is the case for succinate dehydrogenase complex genes, while, PAs have not been reported to da...