Endocrine Abstracts

The “sick euthyroid syndrome” or “non-thyroidal illness syndrome” (NTIS) occurs in a large proportion of hospitalized patients and comprises a variety of alterations in the hypothalamus-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis that are observed during illness. One of the hallmarks of NTIS is decreased plasma triiodothyronine (T3) levels, in severe illness accompanied by low plasma thyroxine (T4) and increased plasma reverse T3 (rT3) concentrations. Downregulation of hy...

17alpha hydroxylase deficiency accounts for less than 1% of all patients diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. Almost 100 mutations in the CYP17A1 gene causing 17-hydroxylase/17,20-lyase deficiency (17OHD) have been described (OMIM 609300). CYP17A1 is expressed in both the adrenals and gonads. Hallmarks of 17OHD include hypertension, hypokalaemia, primary amenorrhoea and absence of secondary sexual characteristics. Most patients with 17OHD remain infertile.</...

The stromal compartment changes with cancer, with an emergence in activated fibroblasts. These stromal changes, which occur with cancer initiation and throughout progression, are known to influence the hallmarks of cancer and are becoming increasingly studied for prognostic and therapeutic purposes. Androgen receptor (AR) signalling in stromal cells is important in prostate cancer and these cancer stromal communications, yet the mechanisms underpinning stromal AR contribution ...

Carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) within the stromal tumor microenvironment play a key role in promoting the development, progression and therapy resistance of prostate cancer (PCa). However, the stromal compartment is not targeted by current treatment strategies. Elevated secretion of transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) by epithelial cells in prostate intraepithelial neoplasia (PIN) lesions and tumor cells induces fibroblast activation to the CAF phenotype and i...

Expanding brown adipose tissue is a potential therapeutic strategy to counteract insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome (MetS). Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) and Takeda G protein-coupled receptor 5 (TGR5) activation enhances insulin sensitivity, suggesting the capacity of FXR/TGR5 agonists to promote brown differentiation in adipose tissue. Treatment with increasing doses of the dual FXR/TGR5 agonist INT-767 (3, 10, 30 mg/Kg bw, daily for 5 days a week, by oral gavage, for 12 ...

Introduction and design: Parathyroid carcinoma (PC) is a rare endocrine malignancy and the diagnosis is difficult. As the incidence seems to be increasing, we examined all cases diagnosed in our country during years 2000–2011 and compared the results to those of atypical parathyroid (AA; n=28) and parathyroid adenomas (A; n=72). All tissue specimens were re-examined.Results: In 2000–2011, 32 patients were diagnosed with PC in ...

Objective: One of the hallmarks of cancer is its unlimited replicative potential. Recently, telomerase promoter (TERTp) mutations were presented as novel mechanism for telomerase re-activation/expression. Due to this fact, it was our objective to study pancreatic endocrine tumours (PET) and related cell lines, to determine if TERTp mutations were present.Design: We performed characterization of the TERTp in a series of 55 PETs and three common PET cell l...

Emerging insights from recent advances in metabolic diseases research suggest that one or several patterns of multiple neuro-endocrine factors are necessary for sustained modulation of body fat or metabolism set points. Gut hormones appear to reside at the core of these master–key-like signaling patterns, as indicated for example by bariatric surgery research. Over the last 7 years, we have therefore tested a large series of combination therapies based on multiple gastroi...

One of the pathways of DTC dissemination is the lymphatic system, however the molecular basis of this process is still unknown. One of the key regulators of lymphangiogesis is Prospero homeobox 1 (Prox1) specifically expressed in LEC and in some human cancers. The present study investigates the expression and function Prox1 in biology of differentiated cancer cells.Studies were performed in a series of thyroid cancer FTC and PTC cell lines. Protein and t...

Context: Pituitary tumorigenesis does not fit into the most common model of cancer development driven by gene mutations. Instead, epigenetic mechanisms have been widely involved. Among them, aberrant DNA methylation at CpG sites is one of epigenetic hallmarks of tumour cells. There are several methods to study the epigenetic regulation of genome activity, from DNA methylation arrays to more specific DNA methylation analysis such as pyrosequencing, Methylation-Specific PCR (MS-...