Endocrine Abstracts

Pathogenic ARMC5 variants are the main genetic cause of Primary Bilateral Macronodular Adrenal Hyperplasia (PBMAH) explaining roughly 20% of index cases. These variants found both at germline and somatic level are mostly frameshift and nonsense leading to a loss of its function. ARMC5 acts then, as a tumor suppressor gene but little was initially known on its function. Using an RNAseq analysis on transient zebrafish models of Armc5 up- and d...

ACTH independent macronodular adrenal hyperplasia (AIMAH) is a rare cause of Cushing’s syndrome. Both Phosphodiesterase 11A4 (PDE11A4) mutations and inactivating mutations of armadillo repeat containing 5(ARMC5) have been associated with familial AIMAH. A family with autosomal dominant AIMAH was studied trying to elucidate the involved genetic basis.Methods and results: Adrenal hypercortisolism with giant bilateral AH was diagnosed in three adult me...

ARMC5 is a tumor suppressor gene responsible for 20 to 40% of Primary Bilateral Macronodular Adrenal Hyperplasia (PBMAH) with a function that remains unclear. Based on pathway analysis from RNAseq results obtained on zebrafish models of transient Armc5 up- and down-regulation, we identified transcriptional alterations of several members of SIRT1 (sirtuin (silent mating type information regulation 2 homolog) 1) signaling in our models and hypothesized that ARM...

Introduction: Patients with “mixed” phenotypes are common among patients with multiple endocrine and non-endocrine neoplasias. Their diagnoses do not fit a given pattern making ge netic counseling difficult and testing impossible to guide. Most of these patients end up getting genome-wide studies for the identification of any predisposing genetic defect. We present a rare case of a 57 year old female who presented clinically with medullary thyroid cancer (MTC), mesot...

Context: Hypertension is one of the most preventable risk factors for cardiovascular disease and death. Up to 42.1% of non-Hispanic African-American subjects have hypertension. We recently found that germline ARMC5 variants may play a role in primary aldosteronism, particularly in African-Americans.Objective: We investigated a cohort of participants in the Minority Health Genomics and Translational Research Bio-Repository Database (MH-GRID) stud...

Endocrine-Related Cancer 2014 21 567–577. DOI: 10.1530/ERC-14-0254...

Introduction: Germline inactivating mutations of the protein kinase A (PKA) regulatory subunit RIα (the PRKAR1A gene) cause primary pigmented nodular adrenocortical disease (PPNAD); other cyclic AMP (cAMP) signalling defects have been associated with bilateral adrenocortical hyperplasia (BAH), cortisol-producing adenoma (CPA) and related lesions. Recently, PRKACA somatic mutations were detected in single, sporadic CPAs in approximately 40% of patients wi...

Introduction: Pituitary gigantism is a rare disorder caused by GH-secreting lesions.Aim: We studied gigantism for genetic defects.Methods: We performed genome-wide analyses in 46 patients with gigantism and 248 patients with acromegaly.Results: We detected a novel microduplication at chromosome Xq26.3 in two unrelated kindreds and 13 sporadic cases de novo. All patients had disease onset before five ...

We have recently reported that somatic mutations in the ubiquitin-specific protease 8 (USP8) are present in corticotropinomas of patients with Cushing’s disease and that these mutations reduced the interaction with 14-3-3. Mutant USP8 exhibited higher deubiquitination activity and potentiated EGFR-induced POMC expression (Reincke et al., Nat Genet 2014). To further study the prevalence of these mutations, we have analyzed 134 ACTH-producing corticotropin...

Background and Methods: Corticotropin-independent Cushing’s syndrome is caused by tumors or hyperplasia of the adrenal cortex. The molecular pathogenesis of cortisol producing adrenal adenomas is not well understood. Therefore, exome sequencing was performed in 10 cortisol-producing adenomas and recurrent mutations in candidate genes were evaluated in additional 171 patients with adrenocortical tumors. In addition, genome-wide copy number analysis was performed in 35 pati...