Endocrine Abstracts

IntroductionPrediction of the efficacy of antithyroid medication in Graves' disease would be of great value. There is no consensus if TSH levels at the end of treatment accurately predict relapse. Previous studies have not carefully defined Graves' disease nor used the same treatment protocol in all patients.AimTo study patients with Graves' disease treated with antithyroid medication to confirm or refute an ...

A 38 year old lady presented at 30 weeks gestation with a 3 week history of headaches and 5 day history of blurring of vision, worse in the left eye. Visual field testing revealed a bitemporal hemianopia. MRI scan of the pituitary showed appearances typical of a macroadenoma which was lobulated in appearance with suprasellar extension (max height 13mm) and compression of the optic chiasm. Endocrine tests indicated that thyroxine was low for the 3rd trimester (79nmol/l), with f...

The glucocorticoid receptor antagonist, RU486, binds to the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) with high affinity, and allows both nuclear localisation and also DNA binding. However, the DNA bound GR does not activate target gene transcription. This suggests that the ligand-binding domain of the GR is required to interpret agonist and antagonist ligands, and transmit those signals to the basal transcriptional machinery. Adaptor proteins play an important role in transducing the effe...

Glucocorticoids (Gc) are highly potent anti-inflammatory agents. They act through the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), a protein capable of multiple protein interactions. The pro-inflammatory cytokines, TNF-a and IL-1 signal, in part, through activation of NF-kB. Nf-kB transactivation is inhibited by activated GR. It has been suggested that the GR, and the p65 (RelA) component of NF-kB form a direct contact independent of Gc ligand, and that Gc binding results in inhibition of p6...

In respect to growth, the adrenal is a dynamic organ that requires constant stimulation from peptides derived from the ACTH precursor pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC) to maintain its tonic state. Previous studies have suggested that the adrenal mitogen resides in the N-terminus of pro-gamma-MSH, which upon cleavage results in the generation of shorter mitogenic peptides not containing the gamma-MSH sequence. This hypothesis has recently been substantiated by our characterisation of...

Liver fatty acid-binding protein (LFABP) is a 14 kDa cytoplasmatic protein found in hepatocytes and enterocytes of the small intestine. It binds long chain fatty acids (LCFA) and other hydrophobic ligands and is thought to play an important role in intracellular LCFA transport.We investigated the regulation of LFABP gene expression by thyroid hormone (T3) and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARalpha) ligand clofibric acid.<p class=...

Objectives: Angiotensin II (AngII) induces renal premature senescence by multiple mechanisms including by increasing oxidative stress. Recent study revealed that growth hormone secretagogue ghrelin exerts anti-senescence effects. In this study, we examined whether ghrelin inhibits AngII-induced renal senescence and damages.Methods: Renal senescence was induced by infusion of Ang II in C57BL/6 mice with osmotic mini-pump. Ghrelin was administered by the d...

Objective: In vitro and in vivo models revealed that the somatotropic system exerts central effects on the central nervous system. The objective of this study was to investigate for the first time whether varying endogenous IGF1 levels are associated with mental health outcomes, namely affective disorders, in humans.Design and methods: We included 6773 subjects from the DETECT study, a representative study on primary care patients in German...

Ghrelin requires a fatty acid modification for binding to the GH secretagogue receptor. Octanoylation of the Ser3 residue of ghrelin is essential for ghrelin-mediated stimulation of GH secretion and regulation of energy homeostasis via increased food intake and adiposity. Other than octanoylation (C8:0), the hormone is subject to other types of acyl modification, decanoylation (C10:0), and possibly decenoylation (C10:1). The fatty acid substrate that contributes to ghrelin acy...

Introduction: Recent reports showed that 2–9.4% of diabetic patients have Cushing’s syndrome (CS) including its mild form, subclinical CS (subCS), but there is no report about screening of acromegaly in diabetic patients. Either 1-mg or 0.5-mg dexamethasone suppression test (DST) is used as the screening test of adrenal CS or Cushing’s disease (CD). The aim of the present study was to screen CS including CD and acromegaly in Japanese diabetic patients.<p cla...