Endocrine Abstracts

Sex steroids have complex effects: testosterone predominantly regulates trabecular and estradiol, cortical bone1. Studies in transgender individuals use insensitive technology and report conflicting effects2. We hypothesized estradiol therapy will increase cortical volumetric bone mineral density (vBMD) in male-to-female (MtF) individuals and testosterone therapy will increase trabecular vBMD in female-to-male (FtM) individuals.Aims...

The mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) is primarily involved in osmoregulation in mammals, with additional roles of brain-behaviour implicated. However, the understanding of this role is limited, partly due to the mortality of MR-knockout mice due to impaired Na+ reabsorption. Many steroidogenesis pathways and hormone receptors are highly conserved in zebrafish, providing a great potential to become a high-throughput model for translational endocrine research. My proje...

Introduction: Trans-sphenoidal Surgery (TSS) remains the primary treatment for acromegaly in most patients, but no previous data exist on outcomes for patients treated with gamma knife radiosurgery (STRS) as a primary treatment.Methods: 20 patients with acromegaly underwent primary STRS at the National Centre for Radiosurgery, Sheffield, UK between 1985 and 2015. Data collection: note review, database, laboratory results, patient questionnaire, and death...

Background: Kisspeptin stimulates gonadotropin secretion indirectly by stimulation of hypothalamic GnRH neurons. Kisspeptin and kisspeptin receptor, a G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR), are also expressed in the human ovary, but their direct actions on ovary, if any, are unclear.Objectives: To examine the direct actions of kisspeptin on granulosa lutein cells (GL cells) and the role of kisspeptin in steroidogenesis.Materials and me...

Endometriosis is a chronic incurable hormone dependent condition characterized by growth of endometrial tissue in sites outside the uterus: 30–40% of women with endometriosis have sub/infertility however the underlying cause is unknown. We have previously demonstrated that steroid-induced differentiation of endometrial stromal cells (hESC) (decidualisation) is associated with increased expression of metabolic genes that are thought to be essential to support the implantin...

JQ1 is a bromodomain inhibitor that specifically targets the BET protein family (comprising Brd2, Brd3, Brd4 and BrdT), which promote the transcription of genes by binding acetylated histone residues and recruiting transcriptional machinery. JQ1 has been shown to have efficacy in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumours, however the genes regulated by the BET family in endocrine tissues, particularly in the pituitary, have not been elucidated. We therefore performed RNA-Seq ana...