Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Childhood growth is an indicator of health/well-being. Growth monitoring identifies treatable conditions in apparently healthy children and prevents inappropriate referrals. Systematic growth monitoring is not currently a UK priority and growth disorders are frequently diagnosed late.Objective: Develop and test the accuracy of GrowthMonitor, an app which enables families to measure a child’s height at home as a cost-effective alternative...

A 57 year-old gentleman with uncomplicated Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and 30 pack year smoking history was assessed in outpatient endocrinology clinic with a 4 month history of non-specific symptoms, including dizziness, lack of energy and intermittent bi-frontal headaches described as ‘pressure behind the eyes’. There was no history of exogenous steroid use. Bloods at 0833 h identified deficiency in testosterone (<1 nmol/l; N= 6–30 nmol/l), thyroxine...

Maternal programming increases the risk of alterations in the offspring’s HPA axis. Previously we showed that maternal undernutrition in sheep induces epigenetic changes in the glucocorticoid receptors (GR) within hypothalamic energy balance pathways, without affecting HPA axis GR. However, these studies focussed on fetal tissues1. Here, we investigated whether GR is epigenetically altered in the HPA axis of adult offspring to determine the status of the pathwa...

CNP belongs to a family of peptides best known for their role in blood pressure regulation and cardiac remodeling. However CNP differs from the cardiac hormones (ANP and BNP) in showing more diverse expression and low circulating plasma concentrations. Genetic studies, as well as showing cardioprotective roles for all three hormones, have revealed a critical role for CNP in promoting linear growth in both rodents and humans. Finding that the aminoterminal bio-inactive fragment...

Pancreatic endocrine tumours (PETs) have a low proliferation index and this partially accounts for their lack of response to chemotherapy. The assessment of proliferation rates relies largely on the use of markers such as Ki67 in patients, and uptake of DNA nucleotide precursors such as tritiated thymidine or 5-bromo-2-deoxyuridine (BrdU) in animals. Amongst these, BrdU is recognised to be the most reliable marker of cell proliferation as it allows the substitution of an endog...

D cells comprise 3–10% of the human endocrine pancreas and secrete somatostatin, which inhibits cell proliferation and hormone secretion. Pancreatic tumours secreting somatostatin are associated with the somatostatinoma syndrome, which is characterised by hyperglycaemia, cholethiasis, a low acid output and anaemia. We have examined for the presence of somatostatin secreting cells in pancreatic tumours from a multiple endocrine neoplastic type 1 (MEN1) knockout mouse model...

Multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1) is an autosomal dominant disorder characterised by the combined occurrence of tumours of the parathyroids, pancreas and pituitary. MEN1 is caused by germline inactivating mutations of the MEN1 gene which is located on chromosome 11q13 and encodes a 610 amino acid protein, menin. MEN1 tumours show loss of heterozygosity (LOH) of chromosome 11q13, and lack menin expression, consistent with a tumour suppressor role for MEN1...

Ligand binding by the calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR), which belongs to family C of the G-protein coupled receptor super-family, activates the phospholipase C-inositol triphosphate pathway and leads to an increase in intracellular calcium. CaSR inactivating mutations result in the hypercalcaemic disorders of familial benign hypocalciuric hypercalcaemia (FBHH) and neonatal severe primary hyperparathyroidism (NSHPT), whilst activating mutations result in the hypocalcaemic disord...

Mutations leading to haploinsufficiency of the dual zinc finger transcription factor GATA3 result in the hypoparathyroidism-deafness-renal dysplasia (HDR) syndrome which is an autosomal dominant disorder. We investigated 21 HDR probands and 14 patients with isolated hypoparathyroidism for GATA3 abnormalities. Venous blood was obtained after informed consent, as approved by the local ethical committee, and leukocyte DNA extracted. GATA3 specific primers were used for PCR amplif...

The calcium-sensing receptor (CaSR) belongs to family C of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) that bind glutamate, GABA, taste molecules and pheromones. Loss-of-function mutations of the CASR gene located on chromosome 3q21–24, cause familial benign hypocalciuric hypercalcaemia type 1 (FBHH1). The genes causing FBHH2 and FBHH3, whose chromosomal locations are on 19p and 19q13.3, respectively, remain unknown. FBHH3, sometimes called the Oklahoma variant (FBHHO...