Endocrine Abstracts

The pituitary derives from an invagination of the oral ectoderm, Rathke’s pouch, where pituitary progenitors are specified during early development. These progenitors are marked by expression of Sox2 and their entry into differentiation involves a switch from Sox2 to expression of other transcription factors implementing each of the lineage-specific differentiation programs. This switch is also accompanied by a switch in cell cycle control mechanisms that may be disrupted...

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The first line treatment of somatotroph adenomas is pituitary surgery, that aims at removing the tumor, but which is frequently incomplete, as invasion into cavernous sinuses often limits the surgical resection. Multimodal medical treatment, which is burdensome, very expensive and has variable therapeutic efficacy, is currently required in more than 60% of the patients. New therapeutic approaches are therefore necessary for controlling hormone secretion, tumor development and ...