Endocrine Abstracts

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the commonest cause of anovulatory infertility; anovulation in PCOS is characterised by arrest of antral follicle growth that may reflect the abnormal endocrine environment. However, it has recently been shown that preantral follicle development is also abnormal in PCO (Webber et al, Lancet 2003, 362 1017). In that study, the proportion of follicles in the primordial, resting, phase, was reduced, compared to normal ovaries, in tissue from bo...

We present a case of a 29-year-old lady who presented with subfertility. She had had a 2 years history of oligomenorrhoea with highly irregular menses. She had symptoms of depression and described tunnel vision. Clinically, she was euendocrine with no features of hormonal excess or deficiency. She was not hirsute. Visual field testing demonstrated a severe left superior temporal quadrantopia.Laboratory investigations demonstrated an oestriadol level rang...

Introduction: The mutation at m. 3243 adenine to guanine (A>G) in mitochondrial encoded transfer-RNA Leucine 1 (MTTL1) gene is the single most prevalent disease-causing mitochondrial DNA (MtDNA) mutation, with carrier status of 1:400 in our general population. The distinct disease phenotype is dependent on the level of heteroplasmy of wild-type vs mutation-type mtDNA in the specific target tissues, ranging from Maternally inherited diabetes and Deafness (MIDD) to mitochond...

Objectives: To examine the effect on weight change of diet/lifestyle advice to maintain/achieve a healthy weight in an unselected PCOS population.Methods: All overweight patients attending the Reproductive Endocrine clinic with PCOS are routinely given lifestyle advice for weight loss by their consultant, offered referral to see a dietician and, when clinically appropriate, prescribed orlistat. Clinical notes were reviewed for 50 consecutive patients wit...

Thyrotropin receptor (TSHR, signals via CREB) expression increases during adipogenesis, a process occurring in Graves’ orbits. CREB activation has been reported ‘necessary and sufficient’ to induce adipogenesis. However, we previously demonstrated that expression of constitutively active TSHR in orbital preadipocytes stimulated early but inhibited later differentiation stages, even when PPARγ agonist induced. Overproduction of proteoglycans is also a featur...

Cellular replacement therapy has already shown clinical efficacy in human patients with Parkinson's' and Huntington's diseases. However, this currently relies on a continuous supply of tissue from early first trimester human foetuses and therefore it will be difficult to translate into a widespread therapy. Neural stem cells are self-renewing cells found in both the developing and adult nervous system that can be expanded ex vivo in defined medium and differentiated into all t...

Little is known about the place of insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) in preantral follicle development, although there is considerable evidence that IGFs are important in antral folliculogenesis. In the rat, isolated large preantral follicles developed better when cultured in vitro in the presence of IGF-I than without (Zhao et al 2001). In the same study, reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction identified mRNA for IGF-I and the type I receptor in the granulosa/theca ...

Background: Self-management is essential for patients with adrenal insufficiency (AI) to achieve optimal outcomes of glucocorticoid (GC) replacement therapy by minimising adverse effects from over- or under-replacement and appropriately adjusting the dose in intercurrent illness to prevent adrenal crisis. Evidence suggests that many patients report deficits in self-management especially concerning ‘sick day rules’, prevention and management of adrenal crisis and have...

The thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) is expressed in the thyroid and in precursors undergoing lineage-specific differentiation, e.g adipogenesis. The TSHR is activated by TSH, thyroid stimulating antibodies (TSAB) and gain-of-function mutations (TSHR*). To investigate the role of extra-thyroidal TSHR activation we compared the gene-expression profiles of non-modified human subcutaneous preadipocytes with the parallel TSHR* population. Twenty-seven genes were significantly upregulat...

Hyperinsulinaemia has an important role in the aetiology of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Logical candidate genes for the development of PCOS therefore include those genes that influence β-cell insulin secretion such as ABCC8 and KCNJ11 on human chromosome 11. These two genes encode the SUR1 and kir6.2 components of the β-cell kATP channel respectively. To our knowledge, these genes have not been studied in women with PCOS previously.<p class="a...