Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Humans with glucocorticoid receptor (GR) deficiency and global heterozygous GR knockout (GR+/−) show compensatory activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, resulting in salt-sensitive hypertension due to increased mineralocorticoid activity. Previous studies suggest renal mechanisms, including changes in cell proliferation, gene expression and electrolyte transport, may contribute to this phenotype but underlying adaptive adrenal responses have...

An adrenal incidentaloma is defined as an adrenal mass >1 cm diameter, discovered serendipitously on radiological imaging done for another reason. They are important because a percentage will turn out to be malignant or secrete excess hormones. The aim of the current study was to ascertain if these lesions were being investigated and followed appropriately compared to American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists guidelines. All imaging reports for the calendar year 20...

Recent Endocrine Society guidelines advocate IGF-1, random GH and nadir GH after oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) for assessment in acromegaly. In our regional centre the 24 h GH profile has also been used partly because of changing IGF-1 assay methodology but also because of concerns that IGF-1 may not adequately reflect partial therapeutic success. We evaluated 58 GH profiles in 35 patients from April 2008 to November 2012 when both GH and IGF-1 assays remained unchanged. ...

This communication tests the hypothesis that iodine (I2) gas or iodine oxides released from seaweeds previously shown to enhance atmospheric iodine adjacent to seaweed hotspots, may through being inspired by respiration, supply a significant fraction of daily iodine requirements. This could assume importance in a country such as Ireland where iodised salt availability is <5%. Iodine intake was assessed by measuring urinary iodine (UI) excretion using a dry ashing technique...

Introduction: Focal congenital hyperinsulinism (F-CHI) is caused by dual-hit pathology, comprising a paternally-inherited ABCC8/KCNJ11 mutation and somatic loss of the maternal allele at chromosome 11p15. This leads to dysregulation of insulin secretion and β-cell overgrowth with a focal domain.Objectives: To compare the proliferative index (PI) of the F-CHI lesion and non-lesion pancreatic tissues to age-matched control pancreata and insul...

Background: Temple syndrome (TS) is a disorder caused by dysregulation of imprinted genes at chromosome 14q32. It is important to distinguish the growth pattern from other imprinting disorders such as Russell–Silver and Prader–Willi syndromes.Aims: To describe the growth pattern in TS.Methods: 51 cases were identified from 11 countries. Height, weight, birth weight and head circumference were converted to SDS using countr...

Introduction: Adipocyte fatty acid binding protein (A-FABP) is a fatty acid chaperone that facilitates the efflux of free fatty acid from cytoplasm into circulation. Previous studies show that A-FABP knockout (KO) mice are more susceptible to diet-induced obesity comparing to wild type (WT) littermates. Here we investigate the underlying mechanism of A-FABP in the regulation of diet-induced obesity.Methods: A-FABP KO mice and their WT littermates were fe...

Introduction: We have previously demonstrated that APPL1 maintains glucose homeostasis by promoting both actions and secretion of insulin. Although APPL2 is a close homolog of APPL1, the physiological function of APPL2 is vaguely characterized. Thus, we generated a knockout (KO) mouse model in which APPL2 is deleted in pancreatic β-cells and hypothalamus (which is called APPL2 KO mice) to investigate its role in glucose and energy metabolism.Methods...

Variation in the human glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene associates with relative glucocorticoid resistance, hypertension and increased cardiovascular disease risk. Mice heterozygous for a null GR mutation (GR+/−) are also glucocorticoid resistant with raised circulating glucocorticoid levels and elevated blood pressure in adulthood. We have characterised the cardiac phenotype of these mice throughout development and investigated their response to cardiovascul...

Chronically elevated glucocorticoid (GC) levels alter cognition and increase cardio-metabolic disease risk. Negative feedback suppression of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, including at the hippocampus, maintains low/basal circulating GC levels. Intracellular GC can be increased, without alteration in circulating levels, by the activity of 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type1 (11β-HSD1). In some tissues, 11β-HSD1 expression is increase...