Endocrine Abstracts

Wnt-signaling has been discovered as a regulator of adipocyte biology, pancreatic β-cell proliferation and insulin secretion. In addition, this pathway has been implicated in the regulation of aldosterone and cortisol secretion by the adrenal cortex. There is evidence that Wnt-signaling molecules can mediate a crosstalk between adipocytes and endocrine cells like pancreatic β-cells and adrenocortical cells.In addition, the recent genome-wide as...

Objectives: Reduced bone mass and compromised bone quality characterise osteoporosis. A positive relationship of the body-mass-index or the body fat mass and the bone density has been reported by several clinical studies. However, it is not clear whether this observation is attributable to higher mechanical stress or whether adipocytes secrete products that directly affect the bone structure.Methods: Isolation of human primary adipocytes to generate fat-...

Introduction: Neuroendocrine tumors (NET) are heterogenous tumors with variable survival and the frequently occurring ability to metastasize. A basis for metastasis of tumors is invasive growth. One factor participating in this process is the existence of the so called ‘circulating tumor cells’ (CTC) in the peripheral blood. Up to now there is only rare data available regarding the number of CTCs in NET patients.Methods: EpCAM protein expressio...

Objectives: Obesity is the major risk factor for the development of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). In addition, increased circulating levels of cytokines and chemokines and decreased adiponectin levels are associated with IGT and T2DM. However, a large part of morbidly obese patient remain normoglycemic. Therefore, we investigated if this protection can be attributed to a lower grade of inflammation or higher adiponectin levels.<p cla...

Most recently, a completely new subset of NK cells with immunosuppressive functions has been identified. These cells are able to downregulate conventional NK cells in a PD1-ligand dependent manner and are, therefore, responsible for tumor outgrowth.The aim of our present study was to investigate the role of this new NK subset in autoimmunity. For this purpose, we used two independent mouse models. In the NOD mice, we found a large increase of suppressive...

Despite their nature of being clinically inapparent, subtle laboratory abnormalities are sometimes detected in patients with adrenal incidentalomas and the question arises whether these changes justify surgical intervention in a patient with an otherwise benign adrenal tumour. Therefore, we aimed at finding further expressions of adrenal hormone excess that reflect net glucocorticoid action.Since glucocorticoids are potent immune suppressants we studied ...

Objective: Recently, we have shown that endothelial cell-conditioned medium (ECCM) stimulates aldosterone secretion and the expression of proteins, essential for steroidogenesis and adrenal development. Also, we have found that fat cells regulate adrenal steroidogenesis through the wnt-signaling pathway. In addition, β-catenin was implicated in adrenal tumorigenesis, including aldosterone-producing adenomas.Methods: We studied the influence of endot...

The mechanisms that lead to tumor formation of and aldosterone secretion by zona glomerulosa cells in primary aldosteronism are not known. Recently, endothelial cell-derived factors have been characterized that control the release of aldosterone by adrenocortical cells. In addition, we started to characterize the regulation of CITED2, a CBP/p300 interacting transactivator with ED-rich tail 2. Earlier, it was shown in mice that absence of CITED2 leads to adrenal agenesis. Since...

Recently a new procedure for measuring serum TSH receptor (TSHR) autoantibody (TRAb) was reported in which the autoantibodies inhibit binding of a human monoclonal thyroid stimulating antibody M22 (labeled with biotin) to TSHR-coated ELISA plate wells. This assay was termed 3rd generation TRAb assay. The aim of the present study was to clinically evaluate the TRAb 3rd generation assay in comparison with the 2nd generation TRAb assay (TRAb-2nd) based on the recombinant human TS...