Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: G protein coupled receptor dimerization is proposed to have great impact on receptor signaling. Allosteric communication between the protomers of a dimer can alter ligand binding, receptor conformation and the interactions with different effector proteins. Although the concept of intradimeric interactions is widely accepted, the molecular mechanism behind them is not clearly understood. In this study we investigated the allosteric interactions within the type I a...

Background: The frequency of SH and AT in pregnancy is of the 3%, and diagnosis is determinant because of the high risk of complications (postpartum hemorrhage, abruptio placentae, gestational hypertension in the mother and disordered brain development and/or intrauterine growth retardation in the fetus).Objective: Determine the frequency of SH and AT in 300 pregnant women.Materials and methodology: About 300 pregnant women were sc...

Receptor endocytosis plays an important role in regulating the responsiveness of cells to specific hormones. Phosphatidylinositol 4, 5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4, 5)P2) has been shown to be critical for many endocytic processes including the internalization of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). We have previously shown that depletion of PtdIns(4, 5) P2 by the chemically induced plasma membrane recruitment of a 5-phosphatase domain prevents the internalizati...

It is generally believed that the signal transduction of AT1 angiotensin receptor (AT1R), the major receptor of angiotensin II, requires ligand binding and subsequent adoption of its active conformation. Activated AT1R induces a plethora of signaling pathways, in contrast to inactive AT1R, which was thought to be silent in terms of signaling. We hypothesized that unliganded, but phosphorylated AT1R may recruit β-arrestins, the key proteins of receptor desensitization, int...

Introduction: In population, thyroid nodule incidence is 1 to 30%; malignancy incidence is 1–20% up to different series, which make us to realize diagnostic methods with variable sensibility and specificity, taking as point of reference, the cytological analysis.Materials and methods: Fifty consecutive patients (44 women, 6 men) with thyroid nodule, performed neck ultrasonography (ALOKA SSD3500 equipment); material of FNA was processed according to ...

Introduction: Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) TNM classification categorizes lymph nodes (LN) according to their location, but does not consider number and size of LN.Objective: To analyze the relationship between number and size of LN in MCT persistent disease (PD).Material and methods: Retrospective study of patients with MTC followed up in a regional hospital from 1985 to 2015. The main variables (expressed as qualitative in freq...

Familial combined pituitary hormone deficiency can be due to a PROP 1 gene mutation. PROP1 is essential to pituitary morphogenesis. Mutations with inactivation of this gene results in deficiency of GH, PRL, TSH, LH, FSH and in some cases, ACTH.The authors describe an affected family, two sibs, with panhyopituitarism: a 10 years old female, and a 15 years old male, who presented with growth and pubertary development delay. Both children lacked GH, TSH, PR...

Objectives: To evaluate changes in gonadotrophins, total (TT) and free (FT) testosterone, SHBG, insulin and c-peptide levels during weight lost after bariatric surgery.Material and methods: Seven (n=7) patients submitted to bariatric surgery for treatment of severe obesity were followed-up over time. Before surgery mean age was 32,857 (19-56) years old, mean weight was 170,571 kg (± 37,362) and mean BMI was 58,824 kg per m2(± 14,...

Kallmann syndrome (KS) is characterized by hypogonadotropic hypogonadism and other non-reproductive disorders including smell deficiency due to olfactory bulb developmental abnormalities. The aim of our study was to evaluate retrospectively the role of MRI in patients with clinical diagnosis of KS, searching for any abnormalities of the brain structures involved.Methods: We evaluated 25 KS pts (14–32 years, 4F, 21 M). KS cases were classified as hyp...

Background: Fungal infections are a rare cause of primary adrenal insufficiency, raising difficulties in the diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.Case report: A 56 years old diabetic male, who lived in Guinea in 1968, was referred to our inpatients clinic because of a 7,7x3 cm adrenal incidentaloma. He presented with hyperpigmentation, postural symptoms, weakness, fatigue, anorexia and weight loss.The rapid ACTH stimulation test h...