Endocrine Abstracts

An increased prevalence of acromegaly and pituitary tumors has recently been observed in high industrial density areas (Cannavò et al. J Endocrinol 2010) or after dioxin exposure (Pesatori et al. Eur J Endocrinol 2008). These data as well as vitro studies on endocrine disruptors (EDs) suggest that environmental pollutants may affect hormonal secretion and pituitary cell proliferation (Blake et al. Proc Soc Exp Biol...

Silibinin, a milk thistle extract with known hepatoprotective effects, has recently been shown to act upon tumoral corticotropes and revert the Cushingoid phenotype in an allograft mouse model (Riebold et al. 2015). Silbinin is known to inhibit HSP90 -a chaperone to the glucocorticoid receptor-thereby restoring sensitivity to glucocorticoid negative feedback in tumoral corticotropes. Aim of the present study was to assess the effect of silibinin on ACTH synthesis and ...

Hypoxia inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α) is a transcription factor regulating expression of many genes related to oxygen homeostasis in response to hypoxic stress. RSUME is a sumoylation enhancer, which was recently cloned from a pituitary cell line with an increased tumorigenic and angiogenic potential. It has been shown that RSMUE is induced by hypoxia and enhances the sumoylation of HIF-1α. Although many studies demonstrated that the level of HIF-1α is remark...

Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor is a member of the G protein-coupled receptors family. According to its incretin properties, GIPR is expressed in tissues such as pancreas, stomach and adipose tissue. However GIPR expression pattern appears to be broader, as it was detected in other tissues such as heart, lung and the central nervous system, thus suggesting either novel ligands for GIPR or novel actions for GIP. Moreover, in some patients with food-d...

PreproTRH (178–199), a 22-aminoacid cleavage product of the TRH prohormone, has been postulated to act as an ACTH-releasing inhibitor. Indeed, in vitro evidence indicates that this peptide may inhibit basal and stimulated ACTH secretion in rodent anterior pituitary primary cultures and cell lines (Redei 1995, Revskoy 2001), although not all studies concur (Nicholson 1996). Aim of the present study was to test the effect of preproTRH(178–199) in human tumoral c...

Introduction: Osteoporosis and vertebral fractures (VFs) commonly occur in overt and subclinical primary hyperthyroidism. In this clinical setting, bone damage is caused by the direct effects of thyroid hormone in excess on bone remodeling, although there is also evidence that low thyrotropin (TSH) values may play a role in driving fracture risk. In fact, TSH was shown to have direct inhibitory effects on osteoclastogenesis and bone resorption. Based on these data, one could a...

Purpose: To evaluate whether the degree of response to surgical pre-treatment with somatostatin receptor ligands (SRL) predicts alterations in blood glucose levels.Patients and methods: We retrospectively studied 181 patients attending the Unit of Neurosurgery of our Hospital prior to transsphenoidal surgery. All patients had a diagnosis of acromegaly (nadir GH during OGTT >0.4 ng/ml; and IGF-I above age-standardized UNL); diagnosis of diabetes (DM) ...

Introduction: We have previously reported on the considerable variability in ACTH-secreting pituitary adenomas in terms of responses to major modulators in vitro (Pecori Giraldi et al J. Neuroendocrinol. 2011). Further studies revealed also differences in gene expression profiles in specimens analyzed by microarray analysis. Aim of this study is to correlate transcriptome expression pattern in archival human ACTH-secreting adenomas with clinical features of patients p...

Introduction: Recent studies showed that morphometric vertebral fractures (VF) are an early and frequent complication in patients (pts) withhyperfunctioning pituitary adenomas and hypopituitarism (independently from the etiology). GH excess or severe deficiency play a negative key role on bone health in this clinical setting. Disease control or adequate replacement therapies still remain a cornerstone for the clinician to reduce the burden of osteo-metabolic complications. To ...

The somatostatin analogue pasireotide is approved for the treatment of Cushing’s disease, where it achieves biochemical normalization in ~40% of patients. Predicting pasireotide resistance would help avoid unnecessary treatment. Pasireotide mediates its antisecretory action by binding to somatostatin receptor 5 (SSTR5). Almost half of corticotroph tumours carry mutations in the ubiquitin specific protease 8 (USP8) gene that encodes for a deubiquitinase. Pre...