Endocrine Abstracts

Aims and Objective: A transmembrane cell-adhesion protein, the Coxsackie-adenovirus receptor (CAR) serves as an entry receptor for enteroviruses and may be essential for their ability to infect cells. Since beta-cell enteroviral infection could contribute to the development of Type 1 diabetes, it is important that CAR expression is analysed in the human pancreas. CAR exists as at least 5 isoforms and we have studied the expression of these dif...

Aims and Objective: A transmembrane cell-adhesion protein, the Coxsackie-adenovirus receptor (CAR) serves as an entry receptor for enteroviruses and may be essential for their ability to infect cells. Since beta-cell enteroviral infection could contribute to the development of Type 1 diabetes, it is important that CAR expression is analysed in the human pancreas. CAR exists as at least 5 isoforms and we have studied the expression of these dif...

Background: Graves’ disease (GD) is a common autoimmune disease of unknown origin. Evidence of an association between autoimmune thyroid diseases and viral infections is, however, emerging. Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I presents both virally and self-derived antigens to circulating immune cells and plays a crucial role in the defense against viral infections. This study aimed to investigate the presence of enterovirus and HLA class I expression in a large GD coho...

Aim: Vitamin D-binding protein (DBP), also known as GC-globulin, transports vitamin D metabolites and is also a major actin scavenger. While DBP serum levels, gene polymorphisms and autoantigens have been associated with diabetes risk, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. DBP is produced by the liver, but has recently been shown to be highly expressed in pancreatic α-cells. We therefore sought to investigate the role of DBP in α-cell identity and function using ...