Endocrine Abstracts

Development of a functional human lung requires regulation of cell growth, proliferation and differentiation in specific germ layer compartments. Important endocrine regulators of respiratory development include glucocorticoid (GC) steroids and the potent synthetic GC betamethasone is commonly used antenatally to treat the deficits of very preterm human birth. Previous studies with conditional mouse knockouts of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) gene have established the mesenc...

Background: The late gestational surge in glucocorticoids is vital for the maturation of fetal organs in preparation for birth and survival during the neonatal period. Metabolic maturation of cardiomyocytes involves a switch in fuel substrate from glucose utilization to fatty acid (FA) oxidation. In fetal cardiomyocytes, glucocorticoids induce expression of Ppargc1a (encoding PGC1a, a master regulator of mitochondrial capacity). We hypothesized that glucocorticoids pr...

Background: 11C-Metomidate (MTO)-PET/CT has recently found utility as an alternative to adrenal vein sampling for lateralisation in primary aldosteronism. MTO binds with high affinity to 11b-hydroxylase (CYP11B1) and aldosterone synthase (CYP11B2) and can be considered an adrenocortical-specific tracer. We and others have therefore hypothesised that combining MTO-PET/CT with 18F-FDG(FDG)-PET/CT would permit indeterminate adrenal lesions ...

Glucocorticoids (Gc) are potent anti-inflammatory steroids which mediate their effects by binding the glucocorticoid receptor (GR). Following ligand binding, GR initiates rapid ‘non-genomic’ kinase signals in the cytoplasm, then translocates into the nucleus to mediate ‘genomic’ effects by binding DNA directly or tethering to other DNA bound transcription factors to modulate target gene expression. Little is known about how rapidly induced cytoplasm derived...