Endocrine Abstracts

Neuroendocrine tumours have a number of different classification and staging systems. I will present the latest of these, which include the latest WHO system with the implications for new entities and how they are diagnosed pathologically and any difficulties that arise from this. There will also be a more general discussion about areas that are difficult for the pathologist and where we can add value to the MDT discussion....

An increasing proportion of people living in our 24/7 culture complain about insomnia symptoms, i.e., they experience problems to fall and/or stay asleep. As demonstrated by epidemiological studies, chronic sleep loss is correlated with weight gain. To investigate whether sleep loss would alter energy metabolism in favour of weight gain, my lab therefore performed a series of sleep loss experiments in metabolically healthy normal-weight subjects. These studies demonstrated tha...

Recent advances in tridimensional (3D) tissue imaging and development of reporter proteins have provided new insight into the dynamic relationship between tissue structure, function and dysfunction in a number of fields of research. In developmental biology 3D microscopy has enabled building of quantitative 3D atlases of embryo morphology and gene expression at cellular resolution and in neuroscience ‘connectomics’, the building of 3D brain connectivity maps is a rap...

Three independent studies identified SNPs in the first intron of the gene FTO as being strongly and consistently associated with BMI and/or obesity at significance levels (P=10−7 to P=10−30) unobserved so far in genetics of obesity. The three studies estimated the putative effect around 1% of the total variance of BMI. So far, this represents the strongest effect for a common variant in obesity.This result ...

Glucocorticoids act within the pituitary gland to maintain the blood levels of glucocorticoids within appropriate limits by negative feedback on the secretion of corticotrophin (ACTH). Annexin 1 (ANXA1) is a calcium- and phospholipid binding protein which was originally identified as a mediator of the anti-inflammatory actions of glucocorticoids in the host defence system. Subsequent work has shown that it that plays an important role in the early delayed (30 min-3 h) feedback...

Determining the sequence of events controlling preadipocyte commitment and subsequent terminal differentiation into adipocytes is critical to gain insight into brown and white fat physiology and metabolic dysfunction. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are important regulators of gene expression and emerging evidence supports their involvement in adipogenesis and adipose metabolism. The aim of this study is to 1) identify miRNAs that modulate differentiation or function of white and brown adi...

Background: Non-ketotic hyperglycemia hemichorea is a movement disorder characterized by irregular, involuntary and abrupt hyperkinetic movements caused by hyperglycemia. The pathophysiology remains unclear however there are several theories on its mechanism. The diagnosis is confirmed by presence of involuntary irregular movements combined with findings of hyperdensities on the basal ganglia in cranial computed tomography scan (CT-scan) or magnetic resonance imaging scan (MRI...

Positron emission tomography (PET) using the glucose analog tracer fluoro-deoxy-glucose (FDG) is today a widely available and highly useful functional imaging modality. Thus, FDG-PET has proved its clinical worth in particularly malignancy detection and treatment monitoring and is now often a first-line choice in the diagnostics of a range of diseases. However, PET is also an excellent tool for non-invasive measurement of metabolic processes, pathophysiology and pharmacokineti...

Introduction: The N-formyl peptide receptor (FPR) family of G-protein-coupled receptors, originally identified to recognise N-formylated bacterial peptides, has in more recent times been shown to bind annexin-1 (ANXA1). ANXA1 is a signalling molecule well demonstrated to mediate two key glucocorticoid effects in the anterior pituitary: inhibition of ACTH release from corticotrophs and regulation of cell proliferation. Whilst previous RT-PCR studies have detec...

Calcium mobilization from intracellular stores represents an important cell signalling process that is regulated, in mammalian cells, by inositol-1,4,5-triphosphate (IP3), cyclic ADP ribose (cADPR) and nicotinic acid adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NAADP). Intracellular calcium is important for mobilization of secretory granules to the plasma membrane in preparation for exocytosis. NAADP mobilizes calcium from lysosome-related acidic compartments and it has been sho...