Endocrine Abstracts

Aims: To determine the relationships between calcium:creatinine (CaCr) clearance ratio and fractional excretion of calcium (FECa).Design: Ten-week study of 15 patients aged 25–93 years undergoing investigations for parathyroid hormone (PTH)-related hypercalcaemia and 39 healthy volunteers aged 20–61 years.Outcome measures: CaCr clearance ratio calculated from 24-hour urine collection and FECa from 5 ml fasting urine aliqu...

Aims: To assess the short-term (one day) and longer-term (10–113 days) test-retest reliability of calcium:creatinine (Ca:Cr) ratio calculated from 24-hour urine collection and its surrogate fractional excretion of calcium (FECa) from urine aliquots.Methods: On the first visit, eight subjects (aged 22–55 years) collected two fasting urine aliquots (5 ml) at the start and end of their non-fasting 24-hour urine collection for FECa<...

IntroductionThe mechanism by which hypertrophy of skeletal muscle occurs in response to anabolic androgens is incompletely understood. This study used a cell culture model of human skeletal muscle-derived cells, with samples obtained from consenting subjects and local ethics committee approval. The objective was to determine changes in myogenicity upon exposure to exogenous androgen +/− IGF-1 and to see whether an additive effect would be observed....

Recent investigations into the pathogenesis of Kallmann's syndrome (KS) have pointed to the importance of anosmin-1 and FGFR1 (fibroblast growth factor receptor-1), the gene products for the X-linked and an autosomal dominant form of KS respectively, in olfactory, GnRH-1 neuronal systems and kidney ontogeny. Disturbed anosmin-1/FGFR1 pathways lead to partial or complete failure of OB (olfactory bulb) development and arrest of GnRH-1 neuronal migration, explaining the predomina...

Understanding the molecular factors that regulate human muscle mass is acquiring increasing scientific interest. Hitherto, known (+ve) endocrine regulators of lean body mass included the GH-IGF-1 system, anabolic steroids, and (−ve) myostatin. In order to elucidate this process further, we have investigated a clinical case at a genetic and phenotypic level. A 46-year-old man with idiopathic muscle hypertrophy requiring multiple therapeutic fasciotomies underwent clinical...

GPR54 is a G protein coupled receptor identified in 2001 as the target for kisspeptin, the product of the KiSS-1 gene. Mutations in both kisspeptin and GPR54 lead to inherited failure to enter puberty (idiopathic hypogonadotropic hypogonadism) in the human, and a mutant mouse line with a targeted disruption of the Gpr54 receptor (Gpr54 -/-) has shown the same phenotype.Puberty begins when neurons in the hypothalamus begin pulsatile secretion of Gn...