Endocrine Abstracts

A 37 year-old gentleman presented following an episode of dizziness while at work operating a fork-lift truck. There was no collapse or associated symptoms. He had been diagnosed with autoimmune hypothyroidism two months previously; commenced levothyroxine, currently at a dose of 75 micrograms daily; and lost ten kilograms in weight. On examination there were no signs of hypoadrenalism aside from a significant postural drop in blood pressure (lying 1...

A 37 year-old gentleman presented following an episode of dizziness while at work operating a fork-lift truck. There was no collapse or associated symptoms. He had been diagnosed with autoimmune hypothyroidism two months previously; commenced levothyroxine, currently at a dose of 75 micrograms daily; and lost ten kilograms in weight. On examination there were no signs of hypoadrenalism aside from a significant postural drop in blood pressure (lying 1...

PTTG binding factor (PBF) is a poorly characterised transforming gene that is overexpressed in thyroid tumours and inhibits the activity of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS) in vitro. Our recent investigations demonstrated that PBF mRNA expression was 2.6-fold higher in thyroid tissue excised from patients with multinodular goitres (MNG) than in normal thyroid tissue (n=25, P<0.01). We have now generated a murine transgenic model of targeted overexpres...

Previously we showed that thyroid-targeted overexpression of the PTTG binding factor (PBF) induced significant goitrogenesis in transgenic mice (PBF-Tg). In 10 week old PBF-Tg mice thyroid weight was increased by 1.8±0.3-fold compared to wild-type (WT) controls (n=20, P<0.0001). We have now examined the long-term effects of PBF overexpression on thyroid gland weight and histology in aged PBF-Tg mice. Our study shows that the penetrance of increased thyro...