Endocrine Abstracts

Many evidences have shown that the beneficial effect of statins on the cardiovascular disease may be not only due to their cholesterol-lowering, but also may result from their non-lipid related effects, such as the improvement of endothelial function, the inhibition of smooth muscle proliferation, etc\. Here we investigated the effect of fluvastatin on H2O2-induced oxidative cell damage and the underlying mechanism in human umbilical vein endothelial cell...

Aldosterone play pivotal roles on renal fibrosis by inducing mesangial cells proliferation and stimulating collagen synthesis in renal fibroblasts. However, whether renal proximal tubules are involved in aldosterone-induced renal fibrosis is not yet identified. The aim of this study was to examine the potential role of aldosterone in collagen expression via activation of extracellular signal-regulated kinase 1 and 2 (ERK1/2) in cultured human renal proximal tubular epit...

Background: Vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency and adiposity have deleterious effects on skeletal health and can increase arterial stiffness. Additionally, low bone mass is associated with increased arterial disease, but little is known about the association of bone geometry with arterial disease.Objective: To determine the association between bone geometry and arterial stiffness in overweight (body mass index >25 kg/m2], older adults [50&...

Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) is a heterodimeric glycoprotein hormone, crucial for regulating female reproduction. Its actions are mediated through FSHR, a Class A G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR), which primarily couples to Gs/cAMP/PKA pathway to modulate ovarian follicle growth, granulosa cell proliferation, and estrogen production. In addition to dogmatic functions of FSH in reproduction, there is increasing evidence that FSH can act on extragonadal tissues. Specifica...

Background: The hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) controls the neuroendocrine response to psychological and physiological stress. The balance of the hormones synthesised and secreted by these organs is tightly regulated. However, there are intrinsic differences in the relative expression of these hormones depending on sex, which can influence the magnitude of the endocrine response to stressors or the response to pharmacological treatments. Herein, we ...

Introduction: Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory arterial disease and is currently one of the most common causes of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality worldwide. Therefore, there is an urgent need to discover new therapeutic targets for treatment of this fatal chronic disease. Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4), a pro-inflammatory adipokine that links obesity with its related metabolic diseases, has been implicated in the development of atherosclerosis. This study...

Objective: To evaluate the optimal parameters and the cut-off points of captopril challenge test (CCT) in the diagnosis of primary aldosteronism (PA) using chemiluminescence immunoassays (CLIA).Methods: Patients with clinically suspected PA who admitted to our hospital between July 2021 and December 2021 were recruited. Both supine and upright aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) were calculated in all the participants and 21 healthy volunteers. CCT was perf...

Background: Evidence suggests that pancreatic stellate cells (PSCs) are present in intra-/peri-islets in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We isolated stellate cell from islets (ISC) of Goto-Kakizaki (GK) rats. Given these cells are intra-islets, which possibly affect the biological behavior of β-cell. This study was designed to determine the effects of ISC isolated from fibrotic islets of GK rats on β-cell function and survival.Methods: ISC was...

The pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas is poorly understood. One of the first genetic abnormalities identified in association with pituitary adenomas occurs in patients with multiple endocrine neoplasia type-1 (MEN-1), due to mutations in the MEN1 gene, encoding menin. A tumor suppressor, menin associates with histone methyltransferase complexes to change the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) inhibitor genes, which may serve as an underlying epigenetic mecha...

Adipose tissue is recognized as an active endocrine organ. Cytokines released from adipocytes induce chronic low-grade inflammation, which is linked to the development of cardiovascular diseases and malignancy.In this study, we examined the relationship between baseline adipokines level and incident cancer risk in a community-based cohort of Chinese subjects. Subjects were recruited from the Hong Kong Cardiovascular Risk Factors Prevalence Study 2(CRISPS 2) cohort. Those with ...