Endocrine Abstracts

This year marks the 100th anniversary of vitamin D. Since its discovery in 1922 - as a factor that protects against the bone disease rickets - our understanding of vitamin D has evolved dramatically. Vitamin D has morphed from environmental/nutritional factor to steroid hormone endocrine regulator to intracrine modulator of transcription. Despite this, vitamin D-deficiency continues to be prevalent in the UK and nutritional rickets remains a significant clinical problem, notab...

Research carried out over the last 10 years has supported a wider role for vitamin D in human health, with proposed beneficial effects for cancer, inflammation and infection and cardiovascular disease. A key component of this new perspective on vitamin D is the increased risk of common human diseases associated with decreased circulating levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25D), more commonly referred to as vitamin D-deficiency. Although 25D is the major serum form of vitamin D, it...

The role of vitamin D in human health continues to attract much attention, both from academic research and the public media. This is due, in part, to continued concern about the prevalence of vitamin D-deficiency in countries such as the UK and the impact this may have on skeletal health, notably in children. However, in recent years vitamin D has also been linked to a wide range of extra-skeletal functions, suggesting that vitamin D-deficiency has a much broader impact on hum...

Vitamin D is a pluripotent secosteroid whose actions extend far beyond classical effects on calcium homeostasis and bone metabolism. Vitamin D is known to exert powerful effects on both innate and adaptive immunity, with important consequences for both infectious and autoimmune diseases. Innate immune activities of vitamin D include the attenuation of antigen presentation by dendritic cells. However, recent attention has focused on the ability of vitamin D to stimulate antibac...

Immunomodulatory properties of vitamin D have been recognized for more than 25 years. However, until recently it was unclear whether these actions of contributed to normal immune function. Two new developments have helped to clarify this. Firstly, our perspective on what constitutes normal vitamin D status has changed considerably, with the introduction of the term ‘vitamin D insufficiency’ to describe individuals with inadequate (but not rachitic) serum levels of 25...

The hormonally active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D) acting via the vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a potent transcriptional regulator, with effects on skeletal and extra-skeletal physiology. We have shown previously that skeletal responses to 1,25D also involve regulation of microRNAs (miRNAs); small non-coding RNAs with an emerging role in epigenetics. To assess the role of miRNAs in innate immune responses to 1,25D we utilised in v...

The hormonally active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D) acting via the vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a potent transcriptional regulator, with effects on skeletal and extra-skeletal physiology. We have shown previously that skeletal responses to 1,25D also involve regulation of microRNAs (miRNAs); small non-coding RNAs with an emerging role in epigenetics. To assess the role of miRNAs in innate immune responses to 1,25D we utilised in v...

The active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D) is abundant in decidua but its role in placental development is unclear. We hypothesized that decidual 1,25(OH)2D promotes placentation in early-pregnancy via actions on trophoblastic cell invasion. Using trophoblastic JEG3, BeWo and HTR8 cells we showed that 1,25(OH)2D has no effect on trophoblastic cell proliferation and migration in plasticware culture. However, in Matrigel t...

The active form of vitamin D, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D), acting via the vitamin D receptor (VDR) is a potent regulator of gene expression, with effects on skeletal and extra-skeletal physiology. We have shown that actions of 1,25D on bone-forming osteoblasts also involve regulation of microRNAs (miRNAs) that play a key role in the functional development of these cells. In the current study, we have investigated miRNAs as mediators of innate and adaptive immune responses ...

End stage renal disease (ESRD) is characterised by decreased renal synthesis of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25D). Therapeutic use of 1,25D analogues for the management of renal bone disease is routine. However ESRD patients are also deficient in 25D (the immediate precursor of 1,25D). Since 2014 UK guidelines recommend diagnosis and treatment of 25D deficiency/insufficiency in people with chronic kidney disease, but make no recommendations for dosage or monitoring. This, togeth...