Endocrine Abstracts

Type 2 diabetes is a major and growing global healthcare challenge, and its earliest antecedent physiological abnormality is insulin resistance. Although conventionally defined in terms of insulin’s effect on blood glucose, prevalent forms of insulin resistance are complex biochemical syndromes characterized by hyperinsulinaemia, dyslipidaemia and low adiponectin. The precise nature of the insulin signalling defect(s), and the extent to which components of this syndrome r...

In addition to the HLA gene region, two further genes involved in the inhibition of T cell signalling, CTLA-4 and PTPN22, have been consistently associated with autoimmune disease (AID), highlighting the important role played by molecules in this pathway in AID susceptibility. The Programmed Cell Death 1 gene (PDCD1) on chromosome 2q37.3 encodes PD-1 which is involved in providing a negative signal to activated T cells. Large case-control studies have show...