Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Low energy availability (LEA) in female athletes can result in HPG axis suppression. Basic military training (BMT) is physically arduous and associated with amenorrhoea and low-trauma fractures. We hypothesised that women undergoing BMT would demonstrate evidence of LEA and suppressed HPG function.Design: Prospective study of 61 women undertaking 11-month BMT. Subjects acted as their own controls at baseline (all measures). Body composition m...

Introduction: Oestrogen receptors (ER) are essential for reproductive function and fertility. ER46 is a 46 kDa truncated isoform of full length ERα (ER66) that binds oestradiol (E2) and can signal via nuclear or membrane-initiated signalling pathways. ER46 has been detected in breast cancer cell lines but expression in endometrial tissues has not been documented. The aims of this study were a) to determine whether endometrial cells express ER46, and b) to investigate a po...

Foetal exposure to a diabetic intra-uterine environment is known to impair metabolic processes with long term consequences, a phenomenon termed foetal programming. However, the mechanisms involved has not been completely understood. Fructose feeding has been used to induce type 2 diabetes in animal models. This study aims to investigate if stress mechanism is involved in the foetal programming of diabetic pregnancies. Twenty-four female rats were randomly divided into two grou...

Background: Placentation (invasion of the placenta into the maternal endometrium) is hypothesised to be critical for healthy placental function and is abnormal in two thirds of miscarriages. Kisspeptin has emerged as a putative regulator of physiological placentation; it is highly expressed in placental syncytiotrophoblasts and could play an important paracrine role in the regulation of placentation. Circulating kisspeptin levels are considerably raised during healthy pregnanc...