Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The appearance and normal development of the anterior pituitary gland requires several signalling molecules and specific transcription factors, such as PROP1, POUF1, HESX1/RPX, LHX3, LHX4, PITX2, T-PIT, SOX2 and SOX 3. Gene mutations of these pituitary transcription factors may lead to different degrees of combined pituitary hormone deficiency (CPHD) associated or not with morphological changes of the hypothalamic–pituitary region.Mate...

Both metabolism and cardiac function fluctuate over the course of the day according to energy supply and demand. The triiodothyronine (T3) regulates several genes related to metabolism and function in cardiomyocytes. Our previous data have suggested that there is a potential interrelationship between the regulation of cardiac function by T3 and the intrinsic circadian clock in the heart. Considering that: i) the hypothyroidism is associated to a reduction...

Drospirenone (DRSP) is a potent antimineralocorticoid with progestative and moderate antiandrogenic properties. We have previously shown that DRSP exerts a potent antiadipogenic activity in murine and human preadipocytes through specific antagonism of the MR. In the present study responses to DRSP were investigated in a model of diet-induced obesity for 12 weeks. Female 10-week-old C57bl6 mice were fed with normal chow or a high fat diet (HF, containing 45% fat by calories). M...

IntroductionWe aimed to establish whether Body Mass Index (BMI) affected outcomes including duration of intensive care stay and in-hospital mortality following cardiac surgery in an Irish cardiac surgery centre.MethodsA retrospective analysis of a consecutive series of 1055 cardiac surgery patients from June 2001 to June 2003 was carried out.ResultsBMI (kg/m2) dat...

The proto-oncogene Gsalpha has been implicated in a significant minority of somatotrophinomas, but the search for candidate oncogenes in the remaining somatotrophinomas, and in the great majority of other types of benign pituitary adenomas, has so far been unsuccessful. Microarray-based comparative genomic hybridisation (microarray-CGH) is a novel DNA microarray technique that has been shown to identify gain or loss at the gene level, and has been proposed as a tool to screen ...

Introduction: haemangiopericytoma is a rare soft tissue tumour originating from pericytes. These are often large and slow growing tumours and manifest rarely as hypoglycaemia. We report a case of haemangiopericytoma-induced hypoglycaemia.Case report: A 72-year-old lady presented with an episode of confusion. She had had similar episodes usually in the early morning hours. She was also known to have hypertension and a large bladder haemangio...