Endocrine Abstracts

We have been issued with the challenge of delivering structured education to our children and families, with much guidance on the standards we should be aiming to achieve. However translating that into effective educational packages that can be delivered by all centres is challenging, especially when operating within the constraints of staff resources, the need to deliver a clinical service and the lack of ‘teacher training’ opportunities for paediatric teams.<p ...

Marked secular trends in obesity prevalence are apparent throughout childhood, and this is leading to more adolescent girls presenting with clinical features of PCOS, including acne, hirsutism and menstrual irregularity. These girls typically also have central obesity and relatively early menarche (onset of first menstrual period).Certain overweight and obese girls may be particularly prone to developing PCOS features. Several studies have identified a r...

The menopause is an inevitable event and one which is physiologically normal in women. It marks the end of the reproductive phase and is marked by changes in hormone levels and a cessation of menstrual periods. The menopause transition describes the time leading up to a woman’s final period, along with endocrinological, biological and clinical features of the approaching menopause. Removal of both ovaries leads to a sudden surgical menopause. In the UK, the average...

A complex network of cell-cell communication system by peptide hormones works for maintaining the mammalian homeostatic balance. To further clarify the intricate mechanisms of the regulation, it is important to discover unidentified bioactive peptides. For this purpose, we have established our own methods for isolating and sequencing of peptides in pico mole quantities. By using these methods, we discovered novel bioactive peptides such as neuromedins, three natriuretic peptid...

Estrogen receptors (ER) play a crucial role in development, reproduction and normal physiology. Even though the concept of ER gene mutations was thought to be lethal. Gene targeting allowed us to produce lines of mice with disrupted ER-alpha (alpha-ERKO) and ER-beta genes (beta-ERKO) as well as a compound alpha/beta-ERKO. Comparable levels of ER-beta mRNA in tissues of alpha-ERKO mice suggesting that ER-beta expression is not dependent on ER-alpha. Estrogen, EGF or IGF-1 treat...

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The lipid species that comprise cell membranes are not uniformly distributed. Instead different lipids can become organised into patches, or microdomains, in the membrane. These microdomains, often termed lipid rafts, can include or exclude proteins with the result that they present a locally different character compared to the surrounding membrane. Lipid rafts are enriched in cholesterol and glycosphingolipid; the saturated acyl chains of the sphingolipids promotes their dens...

Neuroendocrine tumors of the GI-tract have attained increased attention during the last decades. The incidence of these rare neoplasms is about 2.5-4.0 per 100.000 per year.The most significant developments within the management of neuroendocrine GI-tumors have been in the areas of histopathology, tumor markers, localisation procedures and treatment. A new WHO-classification system has emerged which not only classify the tumor as neuroendocrine, but also...

The orphan nuclear receptor steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) initially wasisolated as a key regulator of the cytochrome P450 steroid hydroxylases.Knockout mice lacking steroidogenic factor 1 (SF-1) have a complexendocrine phenotype that encompasses adrenal and gonadal agenesis,impaired expression of gonadotropins by pituitary gonadotropes, andstructural abnormalities of the ventromedial hypothalamic nucleus (VMH).These multiple defects complicate efforts t...

Keith Parker, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA AbstractThe son of two clinician-scientists, Keith Parker attended Williams College, and then received his M.D./Ph.D. degrees from Washington University School of Medicine in 1981. His graduate work with Donald Shreffler focused on structure-function relationships of the complement component, C4....