Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The differential expression of tissue microRNAs in benign and malignant adrenocortical tumours has been described in several studies including ours. Novel data show that microRNAs are also present in the bloodstream and can be exploited as minimally invasive markers of malignancy.Objective: To analyze the microRNAs expressed in different studies by an in silico approach and to establish the molecular pathways affected. Furthermore, circulatin...

Objective: Sporadic adrenocortical tumors are common, but their pathogenesis is poorly elucidated. Several mRNA profiling and comparative genome hybridization (CGH) studies have been performed on adrenocortical tumors to date. Meta-analysis of these results may be warranted due to the low number of tumor samples examined in several individual studies. Here, we present an integrative meta-analysis of gene expression microarray and CGH studies performed to date on sporadic adren...

Introduction: There are three principal high-throughput methods that have been widely used to determine whole genome miRNAs expression profiles: i) microarrays, ii) qPCR based arrays, and iii) next generation sequencing (NGS). Our aim was to compare the results obtained from these platforms in normal and adenomatous pituitary samples and to validate the results by an independent sample set using qPCR.Material and methods: Using four normal pituitary (NP)...

Background: Current drug treatment options for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) are rather limited and intensive efforts are going on to find novel effective agents. In our previous functional genomics study, retinoid signalling via the retinoid X receptor (RXR) was identified as a major pathogenic pathway in ACC and we have demonstrated the in vitro activity of 9-cis retinoic acid (9-cisRA) acting via the RXR on NCI-H295R cells and also found that 9-cisRA has antitumou...

Background: The medical treatment options of adrenocortical cancer are limited. In our previous meta-analysis of adrenocortical tumor genomics data, adrenocortical cancer was found to be associated with reduced retinoic acid production and retinoid X receptor-mediated signaling.Objective: To study the potential antitumoral effects of 9-cis-retinoic acid (9-cisRA) on the adrenocortical cancer cell line NCI-H295R and in a xenograft model....

Introduction: The pathogenesis of sporadic adrenocortical tumors is poorly elucidated. Considering the importance of the adrenal cortex at the immune-neuroendocrine interface and the known actions of immune mediators on adrenocortical cell functioning, we supposed that immune or inflammatory factors might be involved in the pathogenesis of these tumors. Gene expression patterns of various inflammatory and immune mediators were studied by a functional genomics/bioinformatics ap...

Introduction: MicroRNAs (miRNA) are non-coding RNA molecules involved in the posttranscriptional regulation of gene expression. MiRNAs bind mRNA molecules at their 3′ untranslated regions and induce translational repression or target degradation. MiRNAs play important roles in the pathogenesis of several neoplasms. There are no reports, however, on the possible involvement of miRNAs in the pathogenesis of adrenocortical tumors.Objective: To study s...

Introduction: The adrenal cortex is highly involved at the immune-neuroendocrine interface, and several cytokines are known to influence the proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and hormone production of adrenocortical cells. We therefore hypothesized that immune mediators might be involved in adrenal tumorigenesis, as well. Gene expression patterns of various inflammatory and immune mediators were studied by a functional genomics/bioinformatics approach.<p class="abs...