Endocrine Abstracts

A recent audit of the urine steroid profile (USP) service at Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) revealed that up to 25% of requests are made inappropriately, or without any clinical information. In contrast to the majority of biochemical testing, USP analysis is very labour intensive, and interpretation of results requires both quantitative and qualitative assessment of the profile. Adequate clinical information is essential to generate a complete report, as a number of steroids fo...

Background: Proopiomelanocortin gene (POMC) and its cleaved product adrenocorticotrophin hormone (ACTH) play an important role in regulation of the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis. ACTH stimulates the adrenal glands to release glucocorticoids. Glucocorticoid has a suppressive effect on ACTH and POMC. This suppression remains long after withdrawal, and may lead to adrenocortical insufficiency. POMC expression is dependent on the activities of some of the positively act...

The human pituitary tumor transforming gene is overexpressed in thyroid cancers; inducing genetic instability through its role as a securin and propagating growth through induction of growth factors. We have demonstrated reduced cellular proliferation following hPTTG overexpression in neuronal cells. We hypothesised targeted hPTTG overexpression in mouse thyroids will result in hyperplastic/neoplastic growth and that stimulation of thyroid cell growth through standard methods ...

Functional disruption of the tumour suppressor p53 has a critical role in promoting the development of most cancers. The proto-oncogenes PBF and PTTG1 both regulate p53 activity, but the relative contribution of each gene in influencing p53 function has not been delineated, especially in thyroid cancer where both proto-oncogenes are commonly overexpressed. To better understand the interplay between PTTG1, PBF and p53 in vivo, we examined p53 responses in primary thyrocytes cul...

PBF is a proto-oncogene implicated in the aetiology of thyroid cancer. Recently, we have shown that PBF binds NIS, MCT8 and p53, but the full spectrum of its interactions and physiological role within the thyroid remain unknown. Previously, we reported a shortlist of potential binding partners elucidated from K1 and TPC1 papillary thyroid carcinoma cells using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS, n=4). Here we present validation and characterisation of 2 of these proteins; ...

The human pituitary tumor transforming gene (hPTTG) plays important roles in tumourigenesis through its function as a securin and by interaction with the tumour suppressor gene p53. We have previously indentified hPTTG expression as a prognostic indicator for differentiated thyroid cancer. We recently generated a transgenic mouse model overexpressing hPTTG targeted to the thyroid gland via a thyroglobulin promoter to delineate PTTG effects on thyroid tumourigenesis in vivo<...