Endocrine Abstracts

Sex hormones act both as endocrine signals as well as local paracrine or autocrine factors in the nervous system. In addition to target to classical endocrine and reproductive brain areas, sex hormones and its metabolites affect learning and cognition and regulate the development and plasticity of brain regions that are not directly related to reproduction. Estrogen and progesterone exert neuroprotective effects in the central nervous system and may affect the onset and progre...

The perchlorates block the enzyme NIS, inhibiting iodine accumulation in the thyroid and favour the elimination of intrathyroidal iodine unused for hormone synthesis. Their therapeutical utilisation actually is limited due to the toxicity. In the literature there are different opinions regarding the adverse effects (nephrotic syndrome, irreversible aplastic anemia etc.), but several authors sustain that these appear only after high doses, and after the development of therapeut...

NIS and Tg are viewed as characteristic markers for thyrocytes. They are still expressed in a high percentage of differentiated and undifferentiated thyroid carcinomas but these data are obtained by conventional immunohistochemistry. Here we used tissue microarrays and confocal microscopy to compare subcellular localization of Tg and NIS in a large series of benign and malignant thyroid samples.Methods157 papillary (PTC), 56 follic...

Rapid activation of diverse signal transduction pathways is thought to play an integral role in the cellular responses to many steroid hormones, including progesterone. This sex steroid is essential for normal reproduction in nearly all species. The recent cloning of a G-protein coupled receptor with the properties of a membrane progestin receptor (mPR) in fish and the subsequent identification of three mammalian homologues (mPR-alpha, -beta, and -gamma) raised the possibility...

Background: Parathyroid carcinoma (PC) is a rare endocrine tumour, with difficult intraoperative recognition, histological diagnosis and imprevisible evolution. More unusual are the cases appearing at the patients with end-stage renal disease on maintenance hemodialysis (22 observations in medical literature).Case report: A 46 year-old man which suffered of chronic glomerulonephritis from 13 years, being on hemodialysis from three years, complains of ast...

Gitelman’s syndrome (GS) is an autosomal recessive primary renal tubular disorder with hypokalemic metabolic alkalosis, hypocalciuria, and magnesium deficiency. The association of GS and type 1 diabetes is rare1, and bilateral hydronephrosis and hydroureter has not been reported.A 18-year-old female with known GS diagnosed at 17 years of age and type 1 diabetes diagnosed at 15 years of age was admitted to Leicester Royal Infirmary for pre...

We describe two cases of Conn’s syndrome both of whom had hyperprolactinaemia of which one was associated with pituitary adenoma, possibly as part of MEN 1.The first patient was a man aged 52 who presented with hypertension present for 10 years and a marginally low serum potassium. He was on doxazosin, lisinopril, candesartan and celiprolol. His Aldosterone/Renin ratio (8500:1) was very high suggestive of primary hyperaldosteronism. The patient was ...

The influence of the plant lectins on binding of IGF-I, IGF-II and insulin to the cognate receptors from solubilised human placental cell membranes was examined. The lectins (wheat germ agglutinin, WGA; concanavalin A, Con A; phytohaemagglutinin, PHA and Sambucus nigra agglutinin, SNA) were chosen according to their sugar specificity and were expected to bind to the most abundant saccharides present as terminal residues on N-glycan moieties of insulin receptor (IR) and ...

Excessive glucocorticoid exposure has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. The in vivo conversion of inactive to active glucocorticoids is catalysed by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1), requiring NADPH as a cofactor. Hexose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (H6PDH) is co-localised with 11β-HSD1 in the lumen of the endoplasmic reticulum and controls local NADPH availability. Thus H6PDH plays an important role...

The LRP5 gene is believed to be primarily associated with bone metabolism via Wnt signalling. The latter pathway, however, seems to control various other systems outside the skeleton. We identified the C/T (c.4037:A1330V) polymorphism in the LRP5 gene using a restriction analysis of the PCR product in a cohort of 165 white untreated pre-and post-menopausal women. In a subset of 84 post-menopausal women we analysed the association between the LRP5 genotype and circulatin...