Endocrine Abstracts

Somatostatin (SST) and cortistatin (CORT) are two highly related neuropeptides involved in the regulation of several endocrine secretions. In particular, SST and CORT are two primary negative regulators of GH secretion. Consequently, SST or CORT knockout (KO) mice exhibit elevated GH levels; however, this does not lead to increased IGF-I levels or somatic growth, which has been suggested that could be due to a compensatory mechanism between both peptides. In order to test this...

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) are uncommon neoplasms from the endocrine pancreas, whose incidence is recently rising. Unfortunately, an advanced stage is often found at diagnosis; thus, identification of new molecular diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic markers is required. Ghrelin and somatostatin/cortistatin systems are two multifunctional regulatory complexes widely distributed throughout multiple tissues, including the pancreas, where they exert diverse (pat...

The presence of the truncated somatostatin receptor sst5TMD4 has been correlated with poor prognosis in breast cancer tumorsand its overexpression in breast cancer derived cell lines is associated with increased cell malignancy. The objective of this study was to examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this association in order to identify new molecular targets for diagnosis, prognosis or therapy of these tumors. Accordingly, in this study, a breast cancer der...

Objective: Cushing’s disease (CD) is difficult to diagnose because of its rarity and because its most common symptoms can overlap with those of other more common conditions. Remission rates in the postoperative vary between 55–85%. Overall, the mean time to diagnosis was 38 months. The objective of this study was to describe whether there is any pre-surgical clinical data that predicts CD remission after TSS.Patients and Methods: Retrospectiv...

Objective: Remission of Cushing’s disease (CD) in the postoperative vary between 55–85%, recurrence of up to 25%. Remission and recurrence rates vary dependent on tumor size and neurosurgical expertise. The objective of this study is to describe whether there are clinical data that help us to predece recurrence of CD after transsphenoidal surgery (TSS).Patients and Methods: Retrospective analysis of patients who underwent as TSS for CD. Varia...

ESE Young Investigator AwardIntroduction: GH and IGF1 are thought to promote breast carcinogenesis as circulating levels of GH/IGF1 are positively correlated with breast cancer risk in epidemiologic studies, and mouse models with developmental GH/IGF1 deficiency or resistance are less susceptible to breast cancer development. However, no studies have shown that high levels of circulating GH/IGF1 can promote mammary tumorigenesis. In this...

Somatostatin receptors (sst1–sst5) comprise a family of G-protein-coupled, 7 transmembrane domain (TMD) receptors encoded by five separate, intronless genes widely distributed throughout the organism. Somatostatin (SST) and cortistatin (CORT), two highly-related cyclic neuropeptides, bind to sst1–sst5 with comparable subnanomolar affinity to exert a number of (patho)physiological actions, from inhibition of endocrine secretions (e.g. GH and insulin), to the control o...

Ghrelin has been classically known as a GH- and metabolism-regulating hormone, mainly produced by stomach. However, it also acts as a paracrine or autocrine factor in several tissues, where it can regulate tissue growth and neoplastic cell proliferation. Of note, ghrelin needs to be acylated at Ser3 by the ghrelin-O-acyltransferase (GOAT) enzyme to bind to its receptor GHS-R1a. Interestingly, the ghrelin gene can give rise to distinct additional peptides, generated by alternat...

It is now widely accepted that the kisspeptins (kps) and their receptor kiss1r play an essential role in the neuroendocrine regulation of the reproductive axis by stimulating hypothalamic GnRH secretion. However, kiss1 and kiss1r expression in tissues distinct from, but related to, the hypothalamus, prompted us to propose that these molecules may exert regulatory functions in additional places of the neuroendocrine system, such as the pituitary and two of its phy...

Ghrelin was isolated from stomach by its ability to stimulate growth hormone (GH) release through the GH-secretagogue receptor (GHS-R1a). However, ghrelin/GHS-R expression in multiple tissues and tumor types suggested additional roles for this tandem. Ghrelin, a 28-aminoacid peptide, requires a unique O-acylation at its Ser-3 residue to bind GHS-R1a and release GH. Conversely, unacylated ghrelin (UAG), initially considered inactive, seems to play distinct metabolic role...