Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity, characterized by an abnormal body fat accumulation mainly caused by a chronic imbalance between energy intake and expenditure, is a massive public health problem. Targeting excessive fat deposition in adipose tissue and ectopic fat accumulation in skeletal muscle through promoting lipid oxidation pathway may represent a promising strategy to counteract obesity. This study aims at investigating the effects of cabergoline (CAB), a dopamine agonist, on adipose and skelet...

Cushing’s disease (CD), caused by an adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH)-secreting pituitary tumor, is the most common form of hypercortisolism. Pituitary surgery is the first-line treatment of CD and medical treatment is an alternative second-line approach to control cortisol excess. Long-term exposure to glucocorticoids (GC) downregulates the expression of somatostatin receptor type 2 (SSTR2) but not type 5 (SSTR5) in human and mouse ACTH-secreting tumor cell cultures; t...

Acquired resistance has limited the use of systemic molecular therapy in the management of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Immunotherapy, alone and in combination with systemic molecular therapy, is now the first-line standard of care for HCC. The current in vitro study aims at investigating PER2 role in the HCC aggressiveness and drug resistance acquisition. Parental PLC/PRF/5, PLC/PRF/5 resistant to Everolimus (EveR) and to Sorafenib (SorR) cell lines were used. To evaluate ...

Adipose tissue is an endocrine organ releasing adipokines and expressing specific markers and intracellular mediators, which regulate whole-body energy by balancing lipid accumulation and utilization through adipogenesis, the differentiation of preadipocytes into mature adipocytes associated with gradual lipid storage, and lipogenesis, the additional lipid accumulation in mature adipocytes. Adipogenesis and lipogenesis, strongly induced by insulin, occur in white adipocytes, s...

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including bisphenol A (BPA) may promote obesity. The role of 1,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 (VitD) in counteracting adipogenesis is still a matter of question. Thus, the current study aims to investigate whether and how VitD exposure during adipogenesis could prevent the BPA pro-adipogenic effect in adipocyte models: the mouse pre-adipocytes 3T3-L1 and the human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hAMSC). 3T3-L1 and hAMSC were treated with VitD (1...

The transcriptional activator Bmal1, reaching acrophase in the morning and bathyphase in the evening, is the main regulator of circadian clock. A mutual interaction between circadian clock and glucocorticoids (GCs) has been described as well as their implication in muscle metabolism. The current in vitro study aims at investigating Bmal1 involvement in muscle catabolism induced by GCs circadian exposure. To this aim, mouse myocytes C2C12 were serum-shocked to synchron...

In vitro studies suggest that glucocorticoids (GC) long-term exposure downregulates SSTR2 but not SSTR5 expression in human and mouse ACTH-secreting tumor cells (AtT20), limiting the efficacy of octreotide (OCT), a somatostatin-receptor ligand with high affinity for SSTR2, in the treatment of Cushing’s disease (CD). In AtT20, dexamethasone treatment increased miR-375 expression, whose analysis revealed a seed-sequence for SSTR2, supporting the hypothesis that exc...

Obesity is caused by an imbalance between dietary energy intake and expenditure. The expression of dopamine receptors (DRs) in human adipocytes has been already demonstrated. Moreover, the effects of cabergoline, a dopamine agonist, on body weight and glucose homeostasis in obese subjects without hyperprolactinemia has already been reported. The current study investigates the effects of cabergoline on lipid accumulation and on adipogenic factors expression to better define the...

Cushing’s syndrome (CS) is a rare endocrine disease caused by a chronic exposure to endogenous cortisol or exogenous glucocorticoids (GCs). Among multiple comorbidities, impairment of skeletal muscle mass and strength affects 40–70% of patients with active CS and persist even after long-term disease remission. In pathological conditions, GCs excess sustain muscle atrophy and weakness affecting type II muscle fibers. Muscle-specific microRNAs, defined myomiRs, are in...