Endocrine Abstracts

Oncogenic activation of MAPK in thyroid cells leads to loss of expression of genes required for thyroid hormone biosynthesis, including the sodium iodide transporter (NIS) and thyroid peroxidase (TPO). Tumors with BRAF mutation have lower expression of NIS, explaining in part why BRAF-mutant PTCs are often resistant to RAI therapy. We developed mouse models of thyroid cancer driven by BRAFV600E, and these tumors also lose the ability to concentrate radioiodine, whic...

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Recent studies support a causal relationship between radiation, formation of RET/PTC rearrangements, and development of papillary carcinomas. The evidence that RET/PTC rearrangements result directly from radiation-induced DNA damage is compelling, and further substantiated by evidence that predisposition to radiation-induced intrachromosomal inversions involving the RET gene may be favored by the three-dimensional organization of human chromosome 10 during interphase. Thus, il...

Recent advances in treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors with selective tyrosine kinase inhibitors have generated interest in identifying other cancers that could be approached with similar strategies. Cancers derived from follicular (papillary thyroid cancer; PTC) and parafollicular thyroid C cells (medullary thyroid cancer; MTC) represent paradigms of solid neoplasms in which tumor initiation events are well defined, and involve activa...