Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Insulin-like growth factor-II (IGF-II), a critical regulator of placental development, enhances proliferation and survival of human cytotrophoblasts by signalling through the IGF-1 receptor (IGF-1R). Excess IGF-II binds to IGF-2R, which mediates its transport to the lysosomes for degradation. Although considered to act solely as an IGF-II clearance receptor, IGF-2R has been implicated in mediating IGF-II-stimulated migration and invasion in trophoblast. We therefore...

Introduction: The Autoimmune Polyendocrinopathy Syndromes (APS) comprise 4 clinical subtypes (1–4), APS type 1 is an autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the AIRE (Autoimmune Regulator) gene. It should include at least 2 of the following 3 major criteria: chronic mucocutaneous candidiasis (CMC), hypoparathyroidism (HPT) and adrenal insufficiency (AI) although 50% of patients develop all 3 features, usually before the age of 20 years. In addition, there are ...

A male patient treated with a thiazolidenedione (TZD) PPAR gamma agonist for Type 2 diabetes had a dramatic worsening of his thyroid eye disease (TED), which had been stable and inactive for more then two years. Expansion of the orbital fat seemed to be the underlying cause and we have investigated the effects of a PPAR gamma agonist (and subsequently an antagonist) on the adipogenesis of preadipocytes from 10 different patients, representing several fat depots, including TED ...

Mitochondrial dysfunction has been implicated in the pathogenesis of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). Recent research has investigated the role of mitochondria in skeletal muscle and suggesting mitochondrial dysregulation may be linked to T2DM. To date few studies have focused on the role of human adipose tissue (AT) in energy homoeostasis. Therefore we investigated a number of mitochondrial genes including PPARγ co-activator1 (PGC1α, mitochondrial biogen...