Endocrine Abstracts

Several studies support the existence of multipotent stem/progenitor cells in the adult pituitary, whereas the presence of stem cell in pituitary tumors and their role in pituitary tumorigenesis are still on debate. Aim of this study was to identify and characterize stem-like cells in non-functioning pituitary adenomas (NFPAs). To this purpose primary cell cultures from 25 NFPAs were grown in culture conditions that favored stem cell growth (EGF, bFGF and B27 containing medium...

A peculiar characteristic of parathyroid tissue is the ability to spontaneously induce angiogenesis, to proliferate and to secrete PTH when autotransplanted in patients undergoing total parathyroidectomy. Since stem/progenitor cells have been involved in the process of tissue regeneration, we searched for putative parathyroid progenitors from human normal and tumoral parathyroids. By immunohistochemistry, FACS analysis and cell culture we identified parathyroid cells positive ...

Cancer cells and embryonic stem cells share many key biological properties and have common genetic signature: transcription factors regulating self-renewal and differentiation have been found expressed in human cancer cells. We focused our attention on TBX1, the gene involved in 22q11.2 microdeletion/DiGeorge syndrome, which is involved in heart, thymic and parathyroid cells differentiation.Real-time PCR, western blot and immunohistochemistry de...