Endocrine Abstracts

Androgens play an important role in the development and the maintenance of the normal prostate gland. Androgen Receptor (AR) signaling is also critical during the initiation and development of prostate cancer that may present with a range of genomic lesions possibly due to DNA repair defects. We first noted a significant correspondence between DNA breakpoints and AR binding sites supporting the inter-related action that hormone regulation plays a role on genomic events. We hyp...

Ultradian rhythms of glucocorticoid hormones is crucial for optimal glucocorticoid-target gene expression, and therefore it is important to understand the mechanisms regulating glucocorticoid pulsatility and how it becomes disrupted in disease. I will discuss our recent findings on how the adrenal steroidogenic pathway responds dynamically to pulses of ACTH, both in vitro in adrenocortical cells and in vivo in the rat, and how these dynamics become disrupted ...

This presentation will review the role of nutrition in diabetes management, the evolution of advice from RD Lawrence’s Red and Black lines through to the evidence from the current era of the need to consider meal compensation as the basis for insulin dosing with food, the importance of quality of good choices on outcomes, the impact of technology on our understanding of post prandial glucose responses and insulin delivery strategies....

The activity of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis is characterized by an ultradian (pulsatile) pattern of glucocorticoid secretion that is critical for optimal transcriptional, neuroendocrine and behavioural responses to glucocorticoids. We have investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the origin of glucocorticoid ultradian rhythm within the rat adrenal gland. We show that this rhythm of glucocorticoids depends on highly dynamic processes within a...

Fat and protein ‘counting’ is now being advocated as part of intensive diabetes management for patients on insulin pump therapy in addition to carbohydrate counting and insulin adjustment.This presentation will review the current evidence and practical strategies that may be used to improve post meal glycaemic excursions....

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Consultants have all done research and got publications, and juniors always seem to be too busy to do either. However, without direct experience, you have little chance of understanding research papers, let alone generating your own, and somehow you have to fill in that gap on your CV. There comes a time then, at which a clinical research fellowship suddenly seems rather attractive.The benefits of a period in research are obvious. A fellowship allows you...

-Diana Borges Duarte and Francisca Puga are joint first authors and contributed equallyBackground: As therapeutic options improve for Cushing’s disease (CD), most patients can now achieve control or cure of hypercortisolism. However, persistent complaints are often reported. Evaluation of health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) can highlight impairments beyond the stricter clinical aspects. Our aim was to evaluate HR-QoL with a specific focus on men...

ACTH is the product of proteolytic processing of its precursor, proopiomelanocortin (POMC) and, in turn, is subject to proteolytic degradation. Regulation of proteolysis is crucial to several intracellular processes, including protein activation and inactivation, and thus contributes to active peptide concentrations. The proteosome 26S/ubiquitin system (UPS) is the main, non-lisosomial intracellular proteolytic pathway and alterations to this system have been observed in both ...

Brown adipose tissue (BAT), in addition to its role in adaptive thermogenesis, secretes regulatory factors (brown adipokines or ‘batokines’) that have autocrine, paracrine, and endocrine actions. Local secretion of brown adipokines by brown adipocytes target distinct cell types in the tissue (e.g. vascular cells, sympathetic nerve endings, immune cells) and promote the remodeling of BAT in response to distinct physiological conditions requiring adaptive thermogenesis...