Endocrine Abstracts

Amphibia, through metamophosis, recapitulate the evolution of water homeostasis from aquatic life to terrestrial one. Whereas the tadpole has the status of a freshwater fish, the adult has developed a three osmoregulatory organ system, including kidney, bladder and skin, for facing terrestrial dehydration. Amphibia have differentiated epithelial hydroosmotic cells in each organ: principal cells in nephron collecting duct, granular cells in urinary bladder, principal cells in v...

Growth hormone releasing hormone (GHRH) is a neuropeptide mainly synthesised in the hypothalamus, known to exert a stimulatory effect on the synthesis and release of growth hormone (GH) from the pituitary via the activation of specific receptors. New data indicate that GHRH is also produced in both extrahypothalamic brain areas and in peripheral tissues. GHRH-receptor splice variants (SVs) have been found in several peripheral normal and neoplastic human tissues and mediate ef...

Objective: The pathogenesis of pituitary tumours is still incompletely understood. Somatotropinomas occur both sporadically and in the context of familial syndromes, such as multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN1), Carney complex (CNC) and isolated familial somatotropinoma (IFS). Recently, germline mutations were reported in AIP (aryl hydrocarbon receptor interacting protein) gene in Finish and Italian families and in Finish patients with apparently sporadic pituitar...

Dopamine agonist cabergoline (CB) is the first-choice treatment in prolactin-secreting adenomas (PRL-omas). It is effective in reducing PRL secretion and tumour size in about 90% of patients by binding dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2). Although no mutations in DRD2 were found, it has been reported that several polymorphisms of this locus associate with alcoholism and schizophrenia, diseases in which dopaminergic system plays an important role. To assess the possible asso...

Background: Homozygous inactivation of the MEN1 tumor suppressor gene frequently occurs in endocrine pancreatic tumors (EPT); however, a heterozygous germ line inactivation of the gene seems to lead to development of an increase amount of endocrine pancreatic cells. The Notch signaling cascade plays a vital role in sustaining the balance between cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis during pancreatic development. Whether Notch signaling is MEN1 depend...

Introduction: Intronic BclI polymorphism of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene and adrenal adenomas of incidental discovery are frequently associated with metabolic syndrome. We studied in these patients metabolic and hormonal parameters, the sequence alteration in BclI polymorphism of the GR gene from constitutive DNA and the expression of Hsp70 within the tumor and in tissue adjacently to tumor.Patients and methods: We assessed 114 healthy...

In mammals, GHRH is the most important neuroendocrine factor that stimulates the release of GH from the anterior pituitary. In non-mammalian vertebrates, however, the previously named GHRH-like peptides were unable to demonstrate robust GH-releasing activities. In this report, we provide evidence that these GHRH-like peptides are homologues of mammalian PACAP-related peptides (PRP). Instead, GHRH peptides encoded in cDNAs isolated from goldfish, zebrafish and African clawed fr...