Endocrine Abstracts

Non-healing foot ulcers are a major complication in diabetic patients. Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are known to promote angiogenesis with improved wound healing. Orbsen Therapeutics has identified a novel antibody (CD362+) which can be used to prospectively FACS-isolate CD362+CD45− MSC from human bone marrow with enhanced MSC/MNC purity ratios of up to 1/4. Excellagen matrix was used to seed the cells as biomaterials are well reported t...

Low plasma sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) levels are present in patients suffering chronic metabolic diseases, including non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). However, whether altered SHBG production plays a role in development and progression of this disease is unclear. To investigate SHBG involvement in NAFLD, we studied the effects of overexpressing SHBG in two mouse models, a genetically-induced model, by developing a double transgenic mouse by crossing the human...

Oxytocin (OT) is involved in the regulation of energy metabolism and in the activation of cardio-protective mechanisms. We evaluated whether chronic treatment with OT could prevent the metabolic and cardiac abnormalities associated with diabetes and obesity using the db/db mice model. Four-week-old male db/db mice and their lean non-diabetic littermates (db/+) serving as controls were treated with OT (125 ng/kg per h) or saline vehicle for a period of 12 weeks. Compared to db/...

Resistin promotes both inflammation and insulin resistance associated with energy homeostasis impairment. Resistin is secreted by adipose tissue and macrophages, but its mechanism of action remained unknown because its receptor was not characterised. Recently, we have shown that central resistin acts by way of hypothalamic TLR4 receptors promoting overall inflammation and insulin resistance. Here, we aim to block resistin action in HFD mice that are prone to obesity and inflam...

Recent acute in vivo studies have shown that structural modifications of dogfish glucagon improves peptide stability and these analogues can act as dual agonists at both glucagon and GLP-1 receptors. Here, we compared the effects of chronic (51 days) twice daily administration of [D-Ala2]dogfish glucagon (Pep-N) and [D-Ala2]dogfish glucagon-exendin-4(31–39) construct (Pep-C), exendin-4(1–39) or saline treat...

GPR120 is a rhodopsin-like GPCR that has a high affinity for long-chain saturated fatty acids 14–18 carbons and unsaturated fatty acids 16–22 carbons. The beneficial effects of GPR120 on β-cell function and glucose homeostasis have recently been reported however its role in glucagon secretion is unknown. GPR120 and glucagon expression were examined by double immunohistochemical studies using a glucagon secreting cell line (α-TC1.9) and pancreatic tissue fro...

Background: Recent studies have demonstrated antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of metformin and vildagliptin, that could result in some positive effects on kidney function in diabetes. Indeed, in our previous study vildagliptin attenuated routine renal dysfunction markers in insulinopenic diabetic rats, however metformin didn’t improve it. In our current study we evaluated not only glomerular dysfunction marker (albuminuria), but also novel markers of proximal ...