Endocrine Abstracts

Hypercalcemia in hyperthyroidism is usually asymptomatic, and related to a concurrent primary hyperparathyroidism. In this report, we describe a case of symptomatic hypercalcemia secondary to Graves’ disease alone.Case report: A 24-year-old Filipino female presented to the emergency department with generalized weakness, vomiting and abdominal pain. No other symptoms were noted. She was otherwise previously healthy. Family history was unremarkable. D...

Introduction: The production of an oocyte competent of fertilisation and normal embryonic development is controlled by a series of highly organised signals and intracellular events which are known to be affected by physiological glucocorticoids. The actions of these adrenal steroids are modulated by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD) enzymes and we have recently reported that 11β-HSD activity in porcine oocytes increases 20-fold during meiotic maturation...

Hypoparathyroidism is a rare disease characterized by a deficiency in parathyroid hormone (PTH) that results in hypocalcemia and hyperphosphatemia. Current treatment approaches, including high dose oral calcium and active vitamin D, as well as recombinant human PTH (1–84), do not provide adequate or consistent control of either serum calcium or clinical symptoms over a full 24-hour period. AZP-3601 is a novel 36 amino-acid PTH analog that has been designed to potently bi...

Glucocorticoids suppress insulin secretion, inhibit glucose uptake in peripheral tissues, and promote gluconeogenesis in the liver. These effects are known to be mediated via genomic mechanisms of slow onset. Despite recent evidence on rapid non-genomic glucocorticoid signaling in several organs, there is no information on rapid glucocorticoid effects on carbohydrate metabolism in humans.Here we present data on the rapid effects of hydrocortisone on the ...

Ghrelin and PYY are gastrointestinal peptides involved in appetite regulation. The cholinergic part of the vagal nerve participate in the regulation of glucose and insulin levels. We aimed to examine the effects of the cholinergic antagonist atropine on ghrelin, PYY, glucose and insulin under basal conditions and after meal ingestion in lean and obese subjects. Eight lean and eight obese subjects received in a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled crossover study design...

Obestatin has recently been identified as a peptide derived from pre-proghrelin that opposes ghrelin effects on appetite and body weight in rodents. We studied the effect of food intake on both these hormones in obese and lean subjects and recorded in parallel the subjective sensations of satiety and hunger. Eight obese (two males and six females, BMI=31–52 kg/m2) and eight age- and sex-matched lean subjects (BMI=19–23 kg/m2) were randomized to ...

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) affects 1 in 15 people in the U.K, ischaemic damage is predominant and caused by hypoxia. The physiological response to hypoxia is an increase in the transcription factor hypoxia inducible factor (HIF)-1α, which results in reduced oxygen consuming. Previously we have demonstrated that the diabetic heart fails to respond to hypoxia and the aim of this work was to determine if a similar effect was seen in the kidney. HEK293T cells were incubated for 8h...

AZP-3601, a long-acting PTH/PTHrP(1-36) analog, is a candidate new treatment option for hypoparathyroidism (HP). As compared to conventional PTH(1-34), AZP-3601 binds with higher affinity to the R0 conformation of the PTH-1 receptor, resulting in prolonged signaling and sustained elevations in blood calcium (Ca++) in vivo, despite a very short circulating half-life. We assessed whether repeated injection of AZP-3601 into TPTX rats at doses aimed to normalize serum C...

Introduction: Genetic projects, such as 100KGenomes, are identifying a vast amount of genetic variants that require interpretation. Several variants lack sufficient evidence to be classified as neutral or damaging. Such variants are annotated as ‘unclassified’ and interpretation of their biological effect is of paramount importance, but remains a major challenge. Variant predictors are widely used to prioritize variants for further studies...

Introduction: Genetic projects, such as 100KGenomes, are identifying a vast amount of genetic variants that require interpretation. Several variants lack sufficient evidence to be classified as neutral or damaging. Such variants are annotated as ‘unclassified’ and interpretation of their biological effect is of paramount importance, but remains a major challenge. Variant predictors are widely used to prioritize variants for further studies...