Endocrine Abstracts

TSHR autoantibodies with stimulating (agonist) activity cause the hyperthyroidism of Graves’ disease, while the rarer blocking (antagonist) type TSHR autoantibodies are responsible for hypothyroidism in some patients. We have isolated four human monoclonal autoantibodies (MAbs) which bind the TSHR with high affinity. Two antibodies, M22 and K1-18 have potent thyroid stimulating activity, one MAb K1-70 has strong antagonist (blocking) activity and the fourth MAb 5C9 has st...

More than 21 families with inactivating TSHR mutations have been published. Their phenotype varies from euthyroid hyperthyrotropinemia (compound heterozygous) to severe congenital hypothyroidism (homozygous) with thyroid hypoplasia.Current methods to precisely classify mutants with only a slight increase of the basal activity as constitutively active are limited. The results concerning the level of the basal activity can be influenced by the vector and/o...

TSH activates the TSH receptor (TSHR) thereby stimulating the function of thyroid follicular cells (thyrocytes) leading to biosynthesis and secretion of thyroid hormones. Because TSHR is involved in several thyroid pathologies there is a strong rationale for the design of small molecule ‘drug-like’ ligands (SMLs).rhTSH (ThyrogenR) has been used in the follow-up of patients with thyroid cancer to increase the sensitivity for detection...