Endocrine Abstracts

Increasing evidence indicates chronic stress plays an important role in a variety of health problems such as the development of autoimmune disease, and the results from mice studies suggest that the central endocannabinoid (eCB) system regulates endocrine and neuronal responses to stress. However, it is unclear how the eCB system responds to chronic stress in healthy humans. A 520-day isolation-and-confinement study simulating an interplanetary spaceflight mission to Mars prov...

Background and aims: Neuroactive steroids and their metabolites play an important regulatory role in the nervous system affecting the neuronal plasticity, stress response, learning, and memory. The aim of the study was to compare the steroid metabolome in AD patients and controls.Materials and methods: The study comprised of 48 AD patients (30 women and 18 men; age 73.8±9.54 years) and 33 matched controls (22 women and 11 men; age 68.2±5.94 yea...

GH regulates IGF1 predominantly through the intracellular signallers Stat5a and Stat5b. Inactivating mutations of Stat5b in humans result in severe growth retardation and low circulating IGF1 concentrations in males and females. In mice, however, there is only a loss of sexually dimorphic growth in males when Stat5b is deleted. No study has observed Stat5b−/− mice beyond 12 weeks or investigated any subsequent changes in skeletal muscle mass or IGF1 expr...

Background: Hypothalamic damage caused by craniopharyngioma (CP) is related to memory deficits, disturbed attention, and impaired processing speed. This is the first study that aims to establish a structure to function relationship by assessing cognitive function in adult patients with childhood-onset (CO) CP along with volumetric analysis of the hypothalamus.Method: Forty-one (24 women) surgically treated CO-CP patients (median age at diagnosis; 11 year...

Pituitary adenomas comprise a heterogeneous group of tumours causing serious comorbidities, which would benefit from identification of novel, common molecular/cellular biomarkers and therapeutic targets. The ghrelin system comprises a complex molecular family with multiple functions, and some of its components have been linked to development of various endocrine-related cancers. In this work we aim at better delineating the patho-physiological significance of the ghrelin regul...

Introduction: There are three principal high-throughput methods that have been widely used to determine whole genome miRNAs expression profiles: i) microarrays, ii) qPCR based arrays, and iii) next generation sequencing (NGS). Our aim was to compare the results obtained from these platforms in normal and adenomatous pituitary samples and to validate the results by an independent sample set using qPCR.Material and methods: Using four normal pituitary (NP)...

The anterior pituitary gland occupies a central position in the hypothalamus–pituitary glands axes and secretes hormones involved in reproduction, growth, and metabolism. The plasma concentrations of pituitary hormones present fluctuations during the 24 h and are markedly altered during the hypothyroidism. The presence of an intra-pituitary circadian oscillator might be related to these oscillations; however, the molecular mechanism and the consequences of the hypothyroid...

Purpose: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a fundamental component of gene regulation mechanisms. Presently, altered miRNA patterns of expression have been documented in different human cancers, and they may explain the distinct behavior of pituitary adenomas (PA) and the differences between subtypes. miR-375 can target among other genes to IGF1 receptor (IGF1R) and participes in reprogramming cancer cell metabolism. The aim of this study was to assess the miR-375 role on pathogenesis of...

Purpose: The 2004 edition of the WHO text ‘Histological typing of endocrine tumors’ classified pituitary adenomas (PA) on the basis of their histological and immunohistochemical characteristics. Recent advances on the knowledge of the molecular patterns of these tumours may allow establishing a molecular classification with higher accuracy and specificity than previous one.Methods: Within the pale of the multicenter Spanish Molecular Registry o...