Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Y-chromosomal azoospermia factor (AZF) microdeletions are one of the few well-established genetic causes of male infertility, specifically azoospermia or severe oligozoospermia. Since the introduction of a PCR-based method to easily detect the distinct deletion patterns, the screening of infertile men for Y microdeletions has become a very common genetic test performed frequently by a large number of laboratories. An external quality control scheme was establishe...

Tissue inflammation is usually transient but in diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) inflammation persists. It remains unclear why inflammation persists in some tissues and not in others. Recent studies have shown that stromal cells such as fibroblasts play a pivotal role in determining this persisitance. We have hypothesized that glucocorticoid (GC) activation via the enzyme 11beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11beta-HSD1) within fibroblasts plays a key role in ...

Insulin-like factor 3 (INSL3), a member of the relaxin-insulin family, is produced in the Leydig cells and at reduced levels in ovarian thecal cells. As ovaries from most of PCOS are characterized by an hyperplasia of the theca interna, we hypothesized that INSL3 could be overproduced in PCOS women and therefore that circulating levels of this hormone could became a new marker for the syndrome. Forty lean and obese women with PCOS and 20 controls comparable for age and weight ...