Endocrine Abstracts

Primary adrenal insufficiency is due to impairment of the adrenal gland with ~80% of the cases being due to autoimmune adrenalitis (Addison’s disease). Other cases of primary adrenal insufficiency might be idiopathic, caused by adrenal metastases, or due to congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Adrenal insufficiency might also be induced by infectious diseases e.g. COVID-19 and, as seen lately in an increasing number of patients, by novel medications targeting hypertension and ...

The adrenal gland displays an important role in integrating neuronal, immune, vascular, metabolic and endocrine signals under a common organ capsule. The adrenal is the central organ of the stress response system, responsible for responses to acute and chronic stress stimuli and, thereby, playing a major role in numerous stress-related disorders. While for other diseases translational scientists developed programs to generate healthy cells to regenerate damaged tissues in pati...

Chronic stress is a pervasive concern in the modern society. A long-term hyper activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis leads to elevated amounts of stress hormones [e.g. ACTH and glucocorticoids (GCs)]. This can incur maladaptation that eventually contributes to mental illness, cardiovascular dysfunctions, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases. Emerging key players for stress adaptation of the HPA axis are stem/progenitor cell populations. In this study,...

Adrenal insufficiency is a life-threatening condition in which the adrenal glands fail to produce adequate amounts of steroid hormones thus leading to severe disturbances of body homeostasis. Today’s treatment options are limited to hormone replacement therapies that are, however, hampered by serious side effects. Cell replacement therapies with adrenocortical stem cells could present a potential cure, but the culture of such stem cells has proven difficult. We have devel...

Stress can lead to an increase in body fat and obesity as main clinical conditions preceding the metabolic syndrome. In metabolic stress, hyperactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis has been observed, resulting in increased steroidogenesis and alteration of cortisol secretion1. This increased sensitivity of the HPA axis may be related to the development of comorbidities or severe illness in patients with metabolic diseases and vice ...

A tightly regulated stress system is pivotal for health and the adrenal cortex is a master regulator of the endocrine stress response. The adrenal cortex is characterized by constant cell renewal in part mediated by differentiation and lineage conversion of undifferentiated cell types. To date, the contribution of stem cells to organ plasticity during stress has been implicated but is not fully understood. Recently, we were able to show that a prolonged stress exposure leads t...

Evidence indicates that the adrenals are sexually dimorphic and asymmetric. These differences may have implications for the prevalence and progression of adrenal diseases, which also show asymmetry and sexual dimorphism. The present study aims to characterize the morphological and metabolic differences associated with adrenal sex and asymmetry in mice and humans. Adrenals were compared bilaterally in male and female C57B/6NRj mice with regard to morphological and hormonal char...