Endocrine Abstracts

The discovery of the new properties of somatostatin (SSTRs) and dopamine (DRs) receptors has led to a renewed interest in agents targeting these receptors, and has opened new perspectives for medical treatment of patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs). Indeed, patients unresponsive or resistant to the ‘classical’, currently available somatostatin analogs may benefit from these insights. Moreover, SSRs and DRs crosstalk at membrane level may trigger alternative in...

Somatostatin receptors (sst1–sst5) comprise a family of G-protein-coupled, 7 transmembrane domain (TMD) receptors encoded by five separate, intronless genes widely distributed throughout the organism. Somatostatin (SST) and cortistatin (CORT), two highly-related cyclic neuropeptides, bind to sst1–sst5 with comparable subnanomolar affinity to exert a number of (patho)physiological actions, from inhibition of endocrine secretions (e.g. GH and insulin), to the control o...

MENX is a recently identified multiple endocrine neoplasia (MEN) syndrome in the rat. Affected animals develop multiple neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) with high penetrance and at young age, specifically: bilateral pheochromocytoma (100%), multifocal pituitary adenoma (100%), multifocal thyroid C-cell hyperplasia, parathyroid hyperplasia, extra-adrenal pheochromocytoma (paragangliomas) and pancreatic islet cell hyperplasia. MENX is caused by a germline frameshift mutation of the ...