Endocrine Abstracts

Thyroid hormone levels are strongly affected by inflammation. In a wide spectrum of diseases, ranging from critical illness in the ICU to ischemic stroke, a decrease in circulating T3 and T4 is observed without the expected increase in TSH. This disruption of the negative feedback system of the hypothalamic–pituitary–thyroid (HPT) axis is accompanied by various changes in thyroid hormone metabolism at the cellular and tissue level. C...

Resistance to thyroid hormone due to a mutation in thyroid hormone receptor alpha (RTHα) is a syndrome whose features include delayed growth and neurocognitive development. Macrophages, which derive from circulating monocytes and have recently been recognized as important thyroid hormone target cells, are innate immune cells that are capable of adopting a wide range of phenotypes. Assuming the right phenotype in the right setting is crucial as macrophage dysfunction has b...

Innate immune cells, including macrophages, are functionally affected by thyroid hormone (TH). Macrophages can undergo phenotypical alterations, shifting between pro-inflammatory (M1) and anti-inflammatory (M2) profiles. Previous studies have established that increased TH concentrations shift macrophages into a more pro-inflammatory phenotype. Cellular TH concentrations are, in part, determined by TH transporters, cellular gateways facilitating bidirectional TH transport. An i...

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute Gene Targeting Programme is deleting all mouse genes and has already generated 400 knockout mice in a C57/BL6N background with a further 4000 genes targeted in ES cells. Two hundred and fifty new knockouts will undergo limited phenotyping each year. However, the programme lacks a sensitive and sufficiently detailed screen for individual physiological systems, each of which requires high throughput methodology and unique expertise. Thus, we p...