Endocrine Abstracts

Obesity is characterized by insulin resistance and pancreatic β-cell dysfunction; moreover, secretion of adipokines from adipocytes may affect metabolic functions in several tissues, including pancreatic β-cells. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), released by cells as exosomes or shedding vesicles, play a key role in cell-to-cell communication, modifying the phenotype and function of recipient cells by delivering proteins, RNAs and microRNAs. The crosstalk between adipocy...

Pancreatic islet microendothelium exhibits unique structural and functional features, in an interdependent physical and functional relationship with the neighbouring β-cells. Glucose toxicity is not solely restricted to β-cells, but affects also survival, proliferation of human pancreatic islet endothelial cells, thus possibly contributing to β-cell function impairment and β-cell loss. It has been previously demonstrated that the ghrelin gene derived peptid...