Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Patient engagement and adherence are critical to the success of clinical trials. Electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) are increasingly used to evaluate diabetes clinical trial endpoints. This study characterized how subjects prefer to use various types of technology to report ePROs in a clinical trial. Considering patient preference during diabetes trial design may reduce patient burden and improve patient engagement.Methods: 102 subj...

Background: Electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) are a reliable method for collecting patient data in diabetes clinical trials and offer many advantages over paper collection; however, it is essential to consider patient preference and ease of use when employing this technology. Improving the usability of ePRO in clinical trials could ultimately reduce subject burden and improve subject engagement.Methods: 102 subjects with type 2 diabetes were s...

Introduction: A complex cocktail of endocrine-disrupting and other chemicals is ubiquitous in the modern environment. Exposure to such chemicals contributes to diseases including metabolic syndrome and infertility. The liver is the primary defence organ against xenotoxicants, but also the source of major of plasma proteins, and growth factors/hormones.Aim: To understand how chronic exposure to complex mixtures of chemicals at human and environmentally re...

The role of the thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) in bone is unclear. TSHR-deficient mice have low bone mineral density (BMD) and focal osteosclerosis despite normal thyroid hormones (suggesting TSHR function, in bone, is important). Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH) has various aetiologies including thyroid autoimmunity (TA) and inactivating TSHR mutations (TSHR-M). In TSHR-deficiency & TSH-M elevated TSH compensates for reduced TSHR function, whereas in TA it compensates for red...

A new genetic disorder has recently been identified that results from mutation of THRA, encoding thyroid hormone receptor α1 (TRα1). Affected children have a high serum T3:T4 ratio, constipation and a variable intellectual deficit, but exhibit a consistently severe skeletal dysplasia. Similar to these patients, Thra1PV/+ mice harbour a mutation that disrupts the C-terminal α-helix of TRα1 and express a domi...

Introduction: Increased capacity for glucocorticoid regeneration in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT) by 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-1 (11HSD1) is associated with obesity and associated risk factors. We hypothesised that down-regulation of SAT 11HSD1 and/or glucocorticoid receptor-α (GRα) may explain differences in body fat distribution and metabolic risk between black and white women. The study aimed to compare the expression of 11HSD1 and glucocorticoid r...

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...

Investigations of skeletal dysplasias which are often inherited have yielded important insights in the molecular mechanisms of bone development, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. However, these studies have been hampered by the lack of available patients and affected families. To overcome this limitation, we have investigated mice treated with the chemical mutagen N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU) for hereditary musculoskeletal disorders. Mice were kept in accordance wi...

Objective: The adipocytokine visfatin, expressed in abdominal adipose tissue (AT) is thought to mimic insulin activity. However, whilst central adiposity is closely related to insulin resistance (IR) and T2DM, visfatins’ role in the development of these conditions remains unclear.Method: We investigated circulating visfatin levels in non-diabetic (ND) and diabetic (T2DM) subjects and in T2DM patients pre- and post- rosiglitazone (RSG) treatment. We ...

Visfatin, a novel adipocytokine preferentially expressed in omental (Om) adipose tissue (AT), has been shown to exert insulin-mimetic effects in mice and humans. Recent studies in Asian populations show elevated serum visfatin levels in subjects with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM), suggesting a potential role for visfatin in the pathogenesis of this disease. Whilst central adiposity is closely related to IR and T2DM, the role of AT in the development of these conditions remai...