Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of disability and death, and a cause of neuroendocrine dysfunction. Partial or complete pituitary dysfunction is a frequent event occurring in 25–50% of subjects after a TBI as result from damage to either the pituitary or the hypothalamus. This large variability depends on the screening methods and on the difficulty to predict the effects of the trauma on pituitary. Growth hormone deficiency and gonadotropin defic...

UPD is a congenital disease characterized by the presence of two homologous chromosomes inherited from one parent in a diploid offspring. Its effects can be dramatic when the expression of essential genes is lacking. This is due to a phenomenon known as genomic imprinting where only one of the two chromosomal copies is active, depending on the parent of origin. Maternal uniparental disomy of the chromosome 14 (UPD 14 mat) is a rare disorder characterized by prenatal a...

Integrins are cell-extracellular matrix adhesion molecules considered functionally related to the development of cancer metastasis. Starting from the dataset of mRNA-seq of papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) from the TCGA, we determined the expression of fibronectin 1 (FN1) and fibronectin-binding integrins in PTC. We then analyzed the association of the expression of these two genes with the driver genes, the stage of the disease and its outcome. 355 PTCs and 58 normal thyroid...

Introduction: The plasticizer Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disruptor with thyroid interfering activity. Obesity is a recognized risk factor for thyroid cancer. A recent study showed that subjects with BMI ≥ 25 are more prone to BPA-related thyroid disruption. To date, few and controversial experimental and epidemiological data provide weak evidence about a correlation between BPA exposure and thyroid cancer development. Aim of the present study was to assess a possi...

Introduction: GH deficiency (GHD) is a clinical disorder characterized by pathological short stature in the child, altered body composition, impaired psychological well-being and reduced quality of life. These alterations are almost always reversible after recombinant human GH (rhGH) administration, which is currently the only accepted treatment for the subjects with GHD. Secretory dysfunction is confirmed when GH peak does not reach the established cut-off in at least two dif...

Recent studies demonstrated that the calcium/calmodulin dependent kinase 2 (CaMKII) is involved in the regulation of proliferation and survival of epithelial cells, were it phosphorylates RAF-1 and modulates MAPK pathway. A endogenous CaMKII inhibitor (hCaKIINα) is expressed in some cell types. It is down-expressed in colon and in ovarian cancer where it inversely correlates with the disease extension.Aim of our study is to determine the possible ro...