Endocrine Abstracts

Cushing’s tumours are ACTH-producing neoplasms of the pituitary gland. Their ACTH-oversecretion is autonomous and does not respond to the canonical inhibition of the hence also elevated cortisol. Current research in identifying new drug targets is mainly focused on designing therapeuticals that directly inhibit ACTH over-secretion from the adenoma. Serum and glucocorticoid-induced kinase 1 (Sgk1) is an early target gene of glucocorticoids in all cells studied. It is a PKB...

Glucocorticoids act directly on pancreatic islets suppressing insulin secretion from the beta cells through a genomic mechanism of slow onset. We present here data on immediate actions of dexamethasone on two models of insulin secretion: RINm5F and INS-1 beta cell lines. Under normal glucose concentrations, dexamethasone rapidly (within minutes) decreased insulin secretion about 30%. Under hypoglycaemic conditions (glucose reduced to 50% for 1 hour) dexamethasone increased ins...

The Austrian Acromegaly Registry is an initiative of the Austrian Society for Endocrinology and Metabolism. This database includes 607 patients (54% females) followed in twelve centers. Mean treatment period is 10.7 years (range 0–50 years), the total number of patient-years is 6470. Here we report gender-specific differences in the presentation, therapy and biochemical control of acromegaly in patients included in this registry.Mean age at diagnosi...

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The serum- and glucocorticoid-regulated kinase 1 (Sgk1) is a direct transcriptional target of glucocorticoids and is post-translationally activated by the insulin/IGF1 pathway. Distinct polymorphisms in the Sgk1 gene are associated with increased body weight and type 2 diabetes. Here we investigate the expression and regulation of Sgk1 in human obesity.In both omental and subcutaneous human adipose tissue, Sgk1 expression is significantly increased in 20...

The transcription factor and proto-oncogene GLI1 is the terminal mediator of the Hedgehog signalling pathway which is involved in developmental processes, stem cell maintenance and cell proliferation. Although the pathway is mainly active during embryogenesis and tissue repair, it is frequently reactivated in several cancer types.Based on these findings we investigated the potential role of GLI1 in the pathogenesis of pituitary adenomas. GLI1 expression ...

Serum and glucocorticoid-induced kinase 1 (Sgk1) is an early transcriptional target of glucocorticoids with antiapoptotic effects. Sgk1 becomes active after phosphorylation by growth factors such as insulin and IGF1 through the PI3 kinase/PDK1 pathway. Activated Sgk1 increases the cellular uptake of glucose by increasing the membrane abundance of glucose transporters GLUT1 and GLUT4. Here we present data on the expression and regulation of Sgk1 in adipose tissue using three di...

We present data on open reading frame 62 encoded on human chromosome 6 (C6orf62), a gene whose protein expression and function has not been described to date. The gene product of C6orf62 was designated pituitary associated regulator of hormone secretion (PARS).Initial gene expression screens showed that PARS transcription is differentially regulated in secreting and non-secreting pituitary adenomas, as well as in normal pituitary tissue. Inspired ...

Glucocorticoids suppress insulin secretion, inhibit glucose uptake in peripheral tissues, and promote gluconeogenesis in the liver. These effects are known to be mediated via genomic mechanisms of slow onset. Despite recent evidence on rapid non-genomic glucocorticoid signaling in several organs, there is no information on rapid glucocorticoid effects on carbohydrate metabolism in humans.Here we present data on the rapid effects of hydrocortisone on the ...

Adrenomedullin is a vasoactive peptide originally discovered in extracts of human pheochromocytoma. It is highly expressed in plasma and adipose tissue of obese subjects and considered as a member of the adipokine family. Adrenomedullin inhibits adipogenesis under the transcriptional control of insulin. We determined plasma adrenomedullin concentrations in a cohort of 360 healthy subjects and found a very significant positive correlation to body mass index (BMI). In parallel, ...