Endocrine Abstracts

We report on a patient whose type 2 diabetes resolved following interferon-α (IFN-α) therapy for hepatitis C virus (HCV). A 57-years-old man, presented with fatigue, polyuria and polydipsia. He was newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. During the hospital day, he was also diagnosed with chronic hepatitis. Serological studies for chronic hepatitis demonstrated presence of hepatitis C, type 2a/2c genotype. He was started on subcutaneous insulin and IFN-α. After 24...

Patients with type 2 diabetes have an increased risk of premature coronary heart disease (CHD). One of the underlying reasons for this increased risk is atherogenic dyslipidemia. Current management strategies focus on the initial use of statin or fibrate therapy (the latter approach indicated in patients with pronounced hypertriglyceridemia).American Diabetes Association recognizes serum triglycerides as a surrogate for atherogenic triglyceride-rich lipo...

Objective - Sarcopenic phenotype is associated with the increased risk of insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. We investigated the proportion of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity (SO) and their clinical characteristics in patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes.Research design and methods - We conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 133 (75 men, 58 women) patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. All patients underwent a 75 g oral glucose t...

The metabolic features of Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) can vary based on the definition used. The aim of this study is to compare the metabolic characteristics of PCOS according to the phenotypes from various diagnostic criteria and help to establish a optimal diagnostic criteria.Subjects with PCOS defined by the NIH criteria (n=494) and the Rotterdam criteria (n=568) and regular cycling non-hirsuite control women (n=1000) were r...

Insulin resistance is one of the common features of the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and recent studies indicate the possible role of vitamin D in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance and inflammatory response. We aimed to investigate the association between 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and insulin resistance and inflammatory marker in obese women with PCOS and controls.We recruited 50 obese women with PCOS (age 25±5 years, BMI 27.5±2.3...

Background: The elevation of serum immunoglobulin E (IgE) has been recently reported to be associated with Graves’ disease (GD). Interleukin 13 (IL-13) is a major cytokine involved in IgE synthesis and therefore may be a potential candidate gene influencing the clinical course of the GD. The aim of this study are to evaluate whether the atopic parameter such as total IgE is related to TSH receptor antibody (TRAb, thyrotropin-binding inhibitory immunoglobulin: TBII) and wh...

Angiogenesis is the rate-limiting step in tumour progression and metastatic spread. Both promoters and inhibitors of angiogenesis have been implicated in thyroid tumourigenesis. We have reported PTTG overexpression in thyroid and other cancers, and PTTG upregulation of the angiogenic factors FGF-2 and VEGF in vitro. To investigate whether PTTG also transactivates other downstream angiogenic effectors, we employed angiogenesis-specific cDNA arrays. Primary thyroid cells and PTT...

Cancer reflects the progressive accumulation of genetic alterations and subsequent genetic instability of cells. Differentiated thyroid cancers exhibit aneuploidy; cytogenetic studies have demonstrated the importance of genetic instability in thyroid cancer development. Pituitary tumour transforming gene (PTTG), also known as securin, is a mitotic checkpoint protein which inhibits sister chromatid separation during mitosis. PTTG is highly expressed in many cancers and over-exp...

PTTG is tumourigenic in vivo and transactivates fibroblast growth factor-2 (FGF-2). We have previously identified expression of PTTG and FGF-2 as potential prognostic indicators for differentiated thyroid cancer. Critical to PTTG function is a double PXXP motif, forming a putative SH3-interacting domain. We employed cDNA array approaches to identify further genes regulated via this region. MCF12A cells were transiently transfected with vector-only (VO) control, wild-type (WT)-...

Human securin, also known as pituitary tumor transforming gene, plays a critical role during cell division. Ubiquitination of securin during the metaphase to anaphase transition releases its binding partner separase, which cleaves the cohesins holding sister chromatids together. We recently demonstrated reduced securin expression in human fetal versus adult brain, and dissected its role in affecting the proliferation of human embryonal CNS precursor NTERA-2 (NT-2) cells. We ha...