Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Surgery is the main therapeutic option for advanced endometrial cancer; however, when disease relapses, chemotherapy is the only option. Chemoresistance is a very common phenomenon in these tumors. We previously demonstrated that GH protects breast cancer cells towards the cytotoxic effects of doxorubicin, inducing chemoresistance. Recent evidences show that endometrial cancer cells secrete GH, stimulating their own growth in an autocrine fashion.<p class="abst...

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...

Protein kinase C (PKC) is a key enzyme which regulates proliferation, apoptosis and differentiation, representing a pharmacological target for tumor therapy. PKC is a serin/threonin kinase involved in the control of neoplastic transformation, carcinogenesis, neoplastic invasion, chemoresistance. The role of PKC depends on the tissue and on the specific isoform, among the 11 identified so far. In particular, PKC beta II inhibits cell functions, while PKC delta has a protective ...

The change of aminoacid Arginine (CGG) to Glutamine (CAG) at position 171 (R171Q) in the MEN1 gene has been occasionally reported in MEN1 carriers, but also in 1.4 to 5% subjects among the general population, therefore it is still unclear whether it might represent a polymorphism and/or it has a role in tumourigenesis. The aim of our study was to evaluate the presence of the R171Q polymorphism in patients with MEN1-related states presenting for MEN1 genetic screening. F...

Bronchopulmonary endocrine tumors represent 25–30% of lung neoplasms. Surgery provides good survival for differentiated tumors (typical and atypical carcinoids), but is not useful for aggressive poorly differentiated forms. Somatostatin (SRIF) analogs can be used as medical therapy, prolonging patient survival. However, the compounds employed so far did not display antiproliferative effects. Recently, a new stable SRIF analog, pasireotide (SOM230), which activates SSTR1, ...

: 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...

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...

Protein kinase C (PKC) is a family of serine-threonine kinases that regulate many cellular processes including proliferation and survival. Previous evidence has shown that PKC is involved in the control of human medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) proliferation and survival by modulating apoptosis, with a mechanism that implicates PKCβII isoform and translocation in different subcellular compartments.In this study, we investigated the role of PKC&#948...

Many studies demonstrated that somatic BRAF gene mutation analysis increases diagnostic accuracy for papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC), even from very small samples. The gold standard for point mutations research is direct sequencing, that implies DNA extraction, PCR with specific primers, sequencing reaction and run on an automatic sequencer. This is an expensive and time consuming method, and the possible contamination with wild-type DNA not coming from the nodule significan...

Familial pituitary adenoma is frequently associated with germinal mutations of several genes, including menin gene. MEN1 syndrome is an autosomic dominant disease, characterized by parathyroid adenomas, endocrine gastroenteropancreatic tumors, and pituitary adenomas, due to inactivating mutations of the MenI gene (11q13). MEN1 mutations are scattered within and around the menin open reading frame and are mainly represented by single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and ...