Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a chronic diabetic complication occurring in most diabetic patients after 20 years of disease. Progression of DR to its sight threatening stages is usually associated with worsening of underlying retinal vascular dysfunction and disease. The plasma kallikrein kinin system is activated during vascular injury, mediating important functions in inflammation, blood flow, and coagulation. Bradykinin B1 receptor (B1R) is expressed in human ret...

Background: Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is the main cause of end-stage renal disease It is defined by glomerular filtration rate (GFR) impairment and/or presence of increased urinary albumin excretion (UAE). However, these parameters are nonspecific and somewhat delayed manifestations of renal damage. Thus, earlier DKD new biomarkers are strongly warranted.Objective: To investigate the urinary peptidomics profile of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) patien...

Introduction: Viral pathogens seem to play a role in triggering the autoimmune destruction that leads to type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) development. Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3) has been shown to recognize double-stranded RNA, a molecular signature of most viruses. It is expressed at high levels in pancreatic beta-cells and immune cells, suggesting a role for it in the T1DM pathogenesis. Therefore, the aim of this study was investigate if TLR3 polymorphisms are associ...

Introduction: Polymorphisms in genes that encode proteins of the innate immune system, such as the toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), could affect the immune response as well as the prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Activated TLR4 induces expression of a spectrum of proinflammatory cytokines, which have been implicated in insulin resistance. Some studies have reported associations of the TLR4 Asp299Gly and Thr399Ile polymorphisms with T2DM. However, ot...

Introduction: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a highly prevalent chronic metabolic disease with strong co-morbidity with obesity and cardiovascular diseases. FNDC5 gene encodes a type I membrane protein that is processed proteolytically to form a newly identified hormone secreted into the blood, termed irisin. After induction by exercise, irisin activates profound changes in the subcutaneous adipose tissue, stimulating browning and UCP1 gene expression. Th...

Introduction: Long-term insulin independence after pancreatic islet transplantation depends on the engraftment of a large number of viable islets. However, the yield and quality of islets isolated from brain-death (BD) donors are negatively affected by upregulation of proinflammatory cytokines and by hypoxia and oxidative stress that occurs during the BD status. Uncoupling proteins (UCPs) are mitochondrial transporters present in the inner mitochondrial membrane and are associ...

Introduction: Uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) is a mitochondrial transporter present in the inner membrane of mitochondria, and it uncouples substrate oxidation from ATP synthesis, thereby dissipating the membrane potential energy and consequently decreasing ATP production by mitochondrial respiratory chain. As a consequence of the uncoupling, UCP2 decreases reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation by mitochondria. ROS overproduction is related to diabetic retinopathy (DR), a chron...

Introduction: Some studies have reported associations between five uncoupling protein (UCP) 1–3 polymorphisms and obesity. This paper describes a case–control study and a meta-analysis conducted to determine if the following polymorphisms are associated with obesity: −3826A/G (UCP1); −866G/A, Ala55Val and Ins/Del (UCP2) and −55C/T (UCP3).Methods: The case–control study enrolled 282 obese and 483...

Uncoupling protein 2 (UCP2) is a mitochondrial protein located in the mitochondrial inner membrane, and it uncouples substrate oxidation from ATP synthesis, thereby dissipating the membrane potential energy and consequently decreasing reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation by mitochondrial respiratory chain. ROS overproduction is related to diabetic retinopathy (DR), a chronic complication of diabetes mellitus (DM). Recently, our group reported that the -866A/55Val/Ins haplot...

Aims: Some studies have reported associations between uncoupling protein (UCP) 1–3 polymorphisms and obesity or related-features. However, other studies have failed to confirm these associations. Thus, this study describes a cross-sectional study and a meta-analysis conducted to attempt to determine whether the -3826A/G (UCP1), -866G/A, Ala55Val and Ins/Del (UCP2) and -55C/T (UCP3) polymorphisms are associated with body mass index (BMI)...