Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction/background: Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (HA), or stress-induced anovulation, is one of the most common causes of secondary amenorrhea (1,2) and accounts for the reproductive dysfunction seen in under nutrition, excessive exercise, sever emotional stress and chronic disease. From a teleological standpoint, in the face of nutritional or physical stress, it is adaptive for an organism to allocate energy resources for its own survival rather than the costly process of rep...

Introduction/Background: ACTH production from a midgut mesentery NET is extremely rare (1). A 62y old woman presented with hypokalaemia (2mmol/L) and hyperpigmentation, 11y after surgery of a pT3N1Mx non-functional G1 NET with SRS positive, non-resectable but stable, residual mass encasing mesenteric vessels. Serum cortisol (3261 nmol/L), ACTH (796 ng/L), CgA (530 pmol/L) and urine total cortisol metabolites (33920 μg/24h) including 14 sub-products indicated change of bio...

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine malignancy with an unfavorable prognosis. Despite the poor prognosis in the majority of patients, no improvements in treatment strategies have been achieved. Therefore, the discovery of new prognostic biomarkers is of enormous interest. Sterol-O-acyl transferase 1 (SOAT1) is involved in cholesterol esterification and lipid droplet formation. Recently, it was demonstrated that SOAT1 inhibition leads to impaired steroidogenesis ...

M O Thorner, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA AbstractMichael O. Thorner is David C. Harrison Teaching Professor of Internal Medicine. He previously was Kenneth R. Cripsell Professor, Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Director of the General Clinical Research Center and Henry B Mulholland Professor and Chair, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Virginia. He is a fellow of the A...

Objectives: Insulin resistance (IR) is a very common metabolic abnormality in obesity, which is often associated with reduced growth hormone (GH) secretion. GH deficiency is associated with increased in intra-abdominal fat and several parameters of the metabolic syndrome. IGF-I improves IR but the IGF-binding proteins are supposed to regulate its bioactivity although only little information exists. We postulated that the elevated insulin levels due to IR do not only suppress G...

Ghrelin is a circulating growth hormone-releasing and appetite-inducing brain–gut peptide. It needs to be acylated on its serine-3 with octanoate for its endocrine actions. The acyl-transferase that catalyses ghrelin octanoylation has been recently identified and named GOAT (ghrelin O-acyltransferase), which is coded by the MBOAT4 gene. This study aimed to investigate GOAT expression in human. The distribution of GOAT mRNA expression was studied in various human ti...

Objective: Adiposity, insulin resistance, and hyperandrogenism are features of the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4) secreted from adipose and liver tissue has been linked to insulin resistance. We here address the impact of RBP4 on insulin resistance in PCOS and its usability to identify women with metabolic syndrome or impaired glucose metabolism (IGT or diabetes).Design: RBP4 was determined in plasma of 115 PCOS...

It is generally accepted that hepatic responses to α-adrenergic agonists are dependent on the redistribution of intracellular and also extracellular Ca2+. Besides, phenylephrine induces significant K+ flux changes and plasma membrane hyperpolarisation. Earlier it was shown that K+ channel blockers as well as chelating of extracellular Ca2+ with EGTA could inhibit phenylephrine-induced metabolic responses and activation of mitoch...

Ghrelin was isolated from stomach by its ability to stimulate growth hormone (GH) release through the GH-secretagogue receptor (GHS-R1a). However, ghrelin/GHS-R expression in multiple tissues and tumor types suggested additional roles for this tandem. Ghrelin, a 28-aminoacid peptide, requires a unique O-acylation at its Ser-3 residue to bind GHS-R1a and release GH. Conversely, unacylated ghrelin (UAG), initially considered inactive, seems to play distinct metabolic role...

Background and aimsGlucose homeostasis is essential for life. The liver is among the key tissues for maintaining an adequate metabolic homeostasis and its alterations are at the root of the pathogenesis of many disease states. A perfect balance between glucose production, mainly at the liver, and glucose consumption in different tissues, is provided by the action of insulin and counterregulatory hormones as glucagon, cortisol or catecholamines. There is ...