Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: Iodine is important for thyroid hormone synthesis, and iodine deficiency in pregnancy may impair foetal neurological development. Perchlorate, found in some foods and everyday chemicals (e.g. fertilisers) and thiocyanate, which is found in cigarette smoke, decrease the transport of iodine from the circulation to the thyroid cells by inhibiting the sodium-iodide symporter. Environmental exposure to these substances during pregnancy may result in reduced thyroid ho...

Introduction: The adult Turner Syndrome (TS) clinic at UCLH has collected data on over 800 women, attending for up to 20 years comprising over 8000 clinic visits. Data from this cohort forms the Turner Life Course Project. This large dataset allows analysis of pathogenesis of common chronic conditions including diabetes mellitus (DM) and hypothyroidism. There is some debate about the classification of DM associated with TS, with an over representation of up to 11-fold of type ...

Background: Current therapies for reducing raised intracranial pressure (ICP) in conditions such as idiopathic intracranial hypertension have limited efficacy and tolerability. As such, there is a pressing need to identify novel drugs. Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor (GLP-1R) agonists are used to treat diabetes and promote weight loss but have also been shown to affect fluid homeostasis in the kidney. Here, we investigate whether exendin-4, a GLP-1R agonist, is able to modula...

Adipose exposure to glucocorticoids (GCs) results in visceral adiposity and insulin resistance. Only the unbound, free fraction of GC can diffuse into cells. Corticosteroid binding globulin (CBG) is the major GC carrier, binding 80–85% of circulating GCs with high affinity. Targeted proteolysis of CBG by neutrophil elastase (NE) significantly reduces CBG binding affinity. This suggests that neutrophil-mediated inflammation provides a regulatory mechanism for delivery of G...

Introduction: T2DM is one of the main causes of morbidity and mortality in the UK. Epigenetic mechanisms impact gene expression and could predispose individuals to a particular metabolic phenotype. We investigated association of LINE-1 methylation (a surrogate of global DNA methylation) with cardiometabolic parameters in a longitudinal cohort of T2DM patients.Methods: Global LINE-1 DNA methylation in blood-derived DNA samples from 795 (men 60%, women 40%...

By exploiting the canonical function of the sodium iodide symporter (NIS), ablative radioiodide therapy is an effective treatment for thyroid cancer. However, a subset of patients are unable to accumulate sufficient radioiodide due to decreased expression and/or plasma membrane localisation of NIS. Radioiodide therapy has been proposed as a viable treatment for breast cancer, but is hampered by low levels of NIS membrane localisation. Currently, the regulation of NIS trafficki...