Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Bronchial carcinoids (BC) are still orphan of medical therapy. We previously demonstrated that the typical BC human cell line NCI-H727 is sensitive to Everolimus, in terms of cell viability reduction, while the atypical human BC cell line NCI-H720 is not. However, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not been fully clarified.Aim: The aim of our study is to investigate the mechanisms of resistance to mTOR inhibitors in BC cells.<...

Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is a rare and aggressive malignancy. Currently the main therapeutic option is surgery, but due to difficult and delayed diagnosis and to the onset of metastases, medical therapy is often tried. ACC treatment is mainly represented by Mitotane alone or in association with chemotherapy, with variable results. Understanding the molecular mechanisms that regulate ACC proliferation could be useful to identify new therapeutic options. Aim of our study is t...

It is well established that most TSH effects on the thyroid gland, including stimulation of proliferation, thyroid hormone synthesis and expression of thyroid-specific genes, are transmitted mainly by the adenylate cyclise pathway. However, in human follicular cells and in rat FRTL-5 cells, TSH can also stimulate the β-isoforms of PLC that catalyzes the hydrolysis of phosphatidyl-inositol 4,5-phosphate, yielding the second messengers DAG and inositol 1,4,5-phosphate facil...

Bronchial carcinoids (BC) are rare tumors originating from endocrine cells dispersed in the respiratory epithelium. Currently, the main BC treatment is surgery, that can be curative in most of the cases, but is not feasible for large, infiltrating and metastatic disease. In these settings, medical therapy is often tried, being mainly represented by chemotherapy and radiation in the attempt to reduce tumor mass, while somatostatin analogues are employed for symptomatic control....

IGF1 represents an important growth factor in pituitary physiology and pathology, also mediating the negative feed-back mechanisms on somatotroph axis. It has been previously demonstrated that IGF1 promotes cell viability in primary cultures of human non functioning pituitary adenomas, by a mechanisms involving, at least in part, mTOR signaling, which is involved in many pathways controlling proliferation. We aimed at investigating whether mTOR may mediate IGF1 effects also in...

Introduction: LMTK3 is an oncogenic Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTK) implicated in resistance to endocrine therapy in breast cancer. Initially, LMTK3 was described as a regulator of Estrogen Receptor alpha (ERα) since it was found able to protect it from ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation. In a cohort of breast cancer (BC) patients (n>600), LMTK3 protein levels and intronic polymorphisms were significantly associated with disease-free and overall surviv...

: Magmas, a gene encoding for the mitochondrial import inner membrane translocase subunit, Tim16, protects different cell lines from the antitumoral effects of several pro-apoptotic stimuli (i.e. chemicals and chemotherapeutic agents). The synthetic Compound 5 is capable of sensitizing chemoresistant tumor cells overexpressing Magmas to proapoptotic stimuli, indicating that this molecule may be useful to overcome tumor chemoresistance. The aim of our study was to evaluate whet...

Background: Bronchial carcinoids (BC) are rare tumors originating from endocrine cells dispersed in the respiratory epithelium. The main BC treatment is surgery, which is not feasible for large, infiltrating and metastatic disease. In these settings, medical therapy is often tried. Therefore it is important to identify new therapeutic targets and new molecules capable of providing adequate medical treatment for patients with BC. Sunitinib, is an oral, small-molecule, multi-tar...

Adrenocortical cancer (ACC) is still orphan of medical treatment. Our preliminary data show that EGF induces ACC cell lines proliferation (+20 and +10% vs control in SW13 and NCI-H295 cell lines respectively). EGF receptor (EGFR) expression is higher and ubiquitous in SW13 cells, while it is weaker in NCI-H295 cells, where it is present only on the membrane. Aim of our study is to analyze EGFR downstream signalling in ACC cell lines.EGF induces VEGF synt...

Introduction: CDKN1B gene, which encodes a cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitor, regulates the progression throughout G1 to S cell cycle progression. CDKN1B loss-of-function germinal mutations cause the multiple endocrine neoplasia type 4 syndrome (MEN4).Objective: The aim of the study is the functional characterization of a new 4 bp deletion in CDKN1B 5′-UTR region, identified in an acromegalic patient.Materials and metho...