Endocrine Abstracts

Non-functioning pituitary tumors (NFPTs), although benign in nature, frequently present local invasiveness that strongly reduces neurosurgery success. Medical therapy is still under debate, although dopamine (DA) receptor 2 (DRD2) agonists may induce tumor shrinkage in some patients. Aims of this study were: 1) to evaluate the effect of DR2D agonist BIM53097 on migration and invasion of NFPT cells, 2) to investigate the molecular mechanisms regulating the motility of these cel...

Dopamine agonists (DA) inhibit prolactin (PRL) secretion and expression on the pituitary lactotrophs by binding dopamine D2 receptor. Prolactinomas are the most common secreting pituitary adenomas, and DA are the first choice for their treatment because they reduce PRL levels and tumor size. However, a subset of patients is resistant to DA. The mechanisms involved in DA resistance are not fully understood, although decreased expression of D2 receptor or altered signal transduc...

Background: Aberrant cAMP signalling is involved in the pathogenesis of somatotropinomas. Recently, variants of phosphodiesterase type 11A (PDE11A) gene have been described in patients with adrenocortical tumors. Aim of the study was to investigate the presence of these variants in patients with somatotropinomas.Subjects and methods: Germ-line DNA of 78 acromegalic patients was screened for known genetic variants of PDE11A by direct sequencing or restric...

Recently, the G534E variant of the HABP2 gene was reported as the underlying genetic defect in large kindred with non-syndromic familial non medullary thyroid cancer (FNMTC), but these data were not confirmed in additional cohorts. Consistently, we found in our wide series of FNMTC that the HABP2G534E variant is frequent, but does not segregate with the disease. Nevertheless, a possible role for this gene in the pathogenesis of FNMTC cannot definitely ruled out also because co...

Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (PNTs) comprise a spectrum of neoplasms, ranging from low grade carcinoids to the highly malignant small cell lung cancers. Several studies identified cytoskeleton protein Filamin A (FLNA) as determinant in cancer progression and metastasis. To date, the role of FLNA in PNTs aggressiveness and progression is still unknown.To address this question, we decided: i) to evaluate FLNA expression in PNTs ranging from typical carc...

The cut-off values able to differentiate between reactive or neoplastic C cell hyperplasia (CCH) or to predict sporadic medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) are still debated both for basal and stimulated calcitonin (bCT and sCT). Aim of the present study was to define the prevalence and the histological patterns of CCH in 15 patients with multinodular goiter (MNG), bCT>10 pg/ml and sCT levels >50 pg/ml. These data were compared with those from 16 patients with MNG and bCT l...

Objectives: Well differentiated thyroid cancers (WDTC) are generally sensitive to first line treatments or eventually to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). However, a part of WDTC together with poorly differentiated (PDTC) and anaplastic (ATC) thyroid cancers are particularly aggressive and refractory to all treatments, TKIs included. Since TKIs resistance is proven to be related with the presence of TP53 mutations in other tumours, and TP53 alterations are f...

Parathyroid carcinomas (PCas) are rare endocrine malignant neoplasia characterized by an abnormal PTH secretion and, consequently, severe and uncontrolled hypercalcemia. Clinically, the preoperative diagnosis can be misleading, because PCas share some molecular and clinical similarities with benign lesions and are often indolent. The histological diagnosis of carcinoma is achieved based on the presence of mitotic nuclear figures, capsular invasion, parenchyma infiltration, vas...

Introduction: Cells with stem-like properties have been reported in benign and malignant thyroid diseases, and can be propagated by culturing them as non-adherent spheres.Design: Aim of the present study was to widely characterize the stem-like cells in tumor and normal thyroid tissues and in the corresponding in vitro-cultured thyrospheres, and to investigate in vivo the proangiogenic potential of thyrospheres in a zebrafish model....

Embryonic transcription factors have been involved in tumourigenesis. The transcription factor TBX1 regulates the embryonic parathyroid cells fate. Indeed, it has never been investigated in human adult parathyroids. Here, expression, function and regulation of the TBX1 gene were analyzed in adult normal and tumour parathyroid tissues. Immunohistochemistry identified 30–70% (mean±S.E.M, 52.0±7.3%) of cells expressing TBX1 at nuclear levels...