Endocrine Abstracts

Somatostatin (SST) and its related peptide cortistatin (CORT) exert multiple physiological actions through binding to a family of G-protein coupled receptors (sst1–sst5), commonly bearing seven transmembrane domains (TMDs). However, we have recently discovered that human, pig and rodent sst5 gene also generate, through non-canonical alternative splicing, novel truncated albeit functional sst5 variants that lack one o more TMDs. Our studies indicate that truncated sst5 var...

Molecular mechanisms underlying resistance of pituitary tumors to somatostatin (SS) and dopamine (DA) analogs treatment are not completely understood. Resistance has been associated with defective expression of functional SS (SSTR2–5) and DA (DRD2) receptors. The role of cytoskeleton proteins in receptor trafficking, anchoring to the plasma membrane and signalling has been demonstrated in other tumoral cell systems. In particular, filamin A (FLNA) seems to be a good candi...

The Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK is a conserved signalling pathway involved in the control of fundamental cellular processes. Despite extensive research, how this pathway can process a myriad of diverse extracellular inputs into specific biological outcomes is not fully understood. Particularly, the role of this pathway in neuroendocrine tumoral cells remains unclear.We have previously shown that the ERK1/2 pathway is an integrative point in the control of the pituit...