Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Selenoproteins are playing an important role in body homeostasis and development. They control thyroid hormone metabolism and are of prime importance for intracellular redox regulation and cellular defence. The SePP knockout mouse (SePP-KO) is a model of impaired Se metabolism characterized by a disrupted distribution system for organified Se. One of the major phenotypes of the homozygote SePP-KO mice is a reduced increase in size and weight during the growth spurt...

In rodents synthetic glucocorticoids such as e.g. dexamethasone poorly penetrate the blood brain barrier because of multidrug resistance P-glycoprotein (mdr-Pgp). Also cortisol, not naturally occurring in rats and mice, is hampered in uptake. The evidence for this role of the efflux transporter was substantiated with the mdr1a knock out mice. 3H- cortisol and 3H-dexamethasone administered to the mdr1a mutants did label brain targets that retained the ster...

Background: PHPT is often overlooked/underdiagnosed. Several strategies (biochemical markers alone or combined in complex algorithms) have been investigated to easily diagnose/screen PHPT, but PHPT diagnosis remains challenging at present, especially in asymptomatic patients. As serum calcium (Ca) and phosphorous (P) are inversely related in PHPT, the Ca/P ratio could be a good candidate tool for PHPT diagnosis. Surprisingly, no literature data on Ca/P ratio are available, des...

Background: The diagnosis of PHPT and chronic HypoPT is still challenging, mainly due to the wide spectrum of clinical and biochemical presentation and the lack of validated diagnostic index in literature. The serum Ca/P ratio has been proposed as an accurate tool to diagnose PHPT in a small sample of patients, while no data is available about its possible application for HypoPT.Aim: To validate the serum Ca/P ratio as a diagnostic index for PHPT and to ...

Background: Primary hyperparathyroidism (HyperPT) and primary hypoparathyroidism (HypoPT) are often underdiagnosed. Several strategies have been investigated in the past in order to identify diagnostic parameters, although the diagnosis of both HyperPT and HypoPT remains challenging so far, especially in asymptomatic patients. Calcium (Ca) and phosphorus (P) are inversely related together, thus the Ca/P ratio could be an useful tool to define these conditions. Recently, we pro...

Background: Thyroid hormones participate in maturation, differentiation and triggering of immunity, but little is known about the modulating role of thyroid hormones on intracellular enzymatic reactions of immune cells and their role in immunopathogenesis of Graves’ disease (GD).Methods: The activity of NAD(P)-dependent dehydrogenases in lymphocytes and neutrophils ofperipheral blood was studied in a group of 145 women with GD, 53 (36.5%) pati...

Introduction: Evaluation of glucocorticoid production generally requires a dynamic test. Cut-off levels for baseline cortisol concentrations predicting the outcome of a Synacthen test have been proposed for different cortisol assays. With introduction of the new Roche Elecsys Cortisol II assay, P-cortisol concentrations are expected to decrease by 20%. We have investigated cut-off levels for baseline P-cortisol concentrations measured with the Roche Elecsys Cortisol II assay t...

Early events in activated by adrenaline (10−6 M) and phenylephrine (10−5M) single hepatocytes of rat have been investigated by quantitative image microfluorometry and microspectrofluorometry. Membrane potential-sensitive cationic DiOC2(3) and anionic SqSC4 probes have been used for image analysis and transmenbrane potential (Δψp) estimation in real-time studies. Fluorescence spectra resulting from the accumulati...

Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate sex-specific associations of two established serum selenium biomarkers, i.e. total selenium and selenoprotein P with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and hypertension in a large cohort of older people.Methods: 1500 participants with available selenium measurements from the Berlin Aging Study II (BASE-II) were included in this study. In the serum samples, spectroscopy was used to quantify total selenium, a...

Background: Mitotane,(o,p’-DDD)is a compound with potent adrenotoxic effect and is able to block cortisol synthesis by inhibiting 11β-hydroxylation and cholesterol chain cleavage. For these reasons, mitotane was widely used in the treatment of adrenocortical cancer. Nevertheless the biological mechanism induced by these treatments in this cancer cells remain unknown.Aim: To study whether the o,p’-DDD could increase the susceptibility to th...