Endocrine Abstracts

Genes that encode neuropeptides can be recognized in the human genome because their products are (1) highly conserved across species, (2) trafficked though cells by secretory signal peptides and (3) susceptible to proteolytic cleavage at consensus sequences for processing to neuroactive products. One candidate gene is oesophageal cancer-related gene (ECRG4) which was first identified by screening for up- or down-regulated genes in oesophageal cancer. The product of ECRG4, whic...

It was reported that the inhibition of central nervous system (CNS) axon growth is mediated by Ca2+-dependent phosphorylation of epidermal growth factor receptor (pEGFR) and that local administration of small molecule EGFR antagonists to optic nerve lesions promoted retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axon regeneration (Koprivica et al. 2005). This result was attributed to suppression of EGFR kinase, which neutralised the axonal growth inhibitory potency of CNS myeli...

Pancreatic islet cell transplantation is proven to restore functional beta cell mass to achieve normoglycemia in diabetics, but is limited by low availability of human cadaveric donor tissue. A strategy to build capacity is to use stem cells (SCs), and induce their expansion and differentiation into functional islets in vitro. Islet cell neogenesis has been linked to transient and sequential expression of specific transcription factors (TFs) and the actions of endogenou...

PTTG binding factor (PBF) is a poorly characterised 22 kDa protein that is implicated in the aetiology of pituitary and thyroid tumours. Our recent investigations have attempted to discern the function of PBF in vitro. In particular, we reported that PBF can inhibit the activity of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS), which is responsible for iodide uptake into thyroid cells. However, little is known about the precise role of PBF in vivo. We have now generated a mu...