Endocrine Abstracts

RFamides are a family of peptides containing arginine-phenylalanine-amide at their C terminus. A novel 43-amino acid RFamide, named QRFP43, and a shorter endogenous peptide 26RFa, were discovered and identified as ligands of the G protein-coupled receptor GPR103. Different studies have shown that RFamides, such as neuropeptide FF and QRFP43 and 26RFa, play a role in food intake, thermogenesis and energy homeostasis. Here, we investigated the effects of QRFP peptides on surviva...

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) and its complications cause numerous health and social problems throughout the world. Pathogenic action of nitric oxide (NO) is responsible to a large extent for development of complications of the disease. Thus modification of NO production in DM patients appears to be an option for treatment of DM complications.Objective: To study changes in NO concentration in diabetic rats after administration of different compounds...

Introduction: miR143 and 145 seem to be involved in the pathogenesis of cortitotrophinomas by modulating the expression of MAPK7 and CCNL1 genes, which protein products are involved in cell proliferation, differentiation, and cell cycle progression. Objective: To analyze the modulation of miR-143 and -145 in the expression of MAPK7 and CCNL1 genes in corticotrophinomas and corticotrophic tumoral lineage (AtT20).Material and Methods: The expression of MAP...

Objective: The cardiovascular effects of testosterone treatment are debated. Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is an independent marker of cardiovascular risk. We investigated the effect of testosterone therapy on OPG levels in ageing men with low normal bioavailable testosterone levels.Design: A randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study of six months testosterone therapy (gel) in 38 men aged 60–78 years with bioavailable testosterone <7.3 nmol/l...

Spermatozoa generate small amounts of O2°- and NO°. Under physiological condition these compounds exist at very low concentration and the formation of peroxynitrite (ONOO−) appears likely. Peroxynitrite reacts rapidly with proteins, lipids and DNA. Moreover, tyrosine nitration is a widely used marker of peroxynitrite. The nitration of protein residues gives rise to 3-nitrotyrosine which represents a protein modification specific for ONOO− formation in ...

We describe a clinical case of the patient with the syndrome of partial resistance to androgens. The patient, a man 25 years old, complained of a barren marriage. Lab and clinical findings included high gonadotropin and testosterone levels, hypogonadal appearance, coronal hypospadias, left-sided varicocele, oligoastenotheratozoospermia. The results of cytogenetic analysis showed a normal male karyotype (46, XY). Molecular genetic studies identified mutation in exon 1 of androg...

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is one of the most common endocrine disorders affecting reproductive women. Treatments with Chinese herbal mixtures (HM) and electro-acupuncture (EA) have been proven efficient in clinic. This study evaluated the peripheral and central effects of HM and EA in dihydrotestosterone (DHT)-induced PCOS rats. The female Wistar rats were divided into control (C), control with placebo (CP), DHT-induced PCOS model (PCOS), PCOS model exposed to herbal mi...

TLR4 activation and the induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress (ERS) are two of the most important mechanisms connecting excessive dietary fat with insulin resistance. TLR4 activation is a primary event in the induction of cellular stress that contributes to increased inflammatory gene expression in metabolic diseases. However, the mechanisms linking these molecular events are unknown. The chaperones GRP78 and GRP94 play an important role during the assembly of newly transl...

Introduction: Since the 1990’s cabergoline has become the treatment of choice in prolactinomas, allowing rapid and efficient hormonal and tumoral control in most cases. Evidence of cardiac valculopathy was demonstrated in patients treated by dopamine agonists for Parkinson disease, which led to curtailment of their use in this disease. Retrospective studies in hyperprolactinemia patients treated with cabergoline did not show such an effect, probably due to much lower dose...

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a neuroendocrine tumor highly resistant to chemo-and radiotherapy. Since several reports showed that cAMP has an antiproliferative effect on different types of solid tumors both in vitro and in vivo, we evaluated the potential anti-neoplastic activity of cAMP analogues (8-Cl-cAMP and the equimolar combination of 8-PIP-cAMP and 8-HA-cAMP) in two MTC cell lines (TT and MZ-CRC-1 that harbor C634W and M918T RET mutations, respecti...