ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

Brief Summary: This retrospective, observational, single centre study compared the risk of tumor progression or recurrence in 71 patients with childhood-onset craniopharyngioma (CP) who started GH replacement therapy (GHRT) with different latency from the end of tumor treatment.GHRT latency was defined as the time from end of CP treatment (last debulking procedure or radiotherapy, or from CP diagnosis for the 5 patients without any debulking procedure or...

Nat Med. 2021 Nov;27(11):1928-1940. doi: 10.1038/s41591-021-01502-7. PMID: 34663987.Brief Summary: This clinical study characterised the spectrum of novel diabetes phenotypes due to mutations in the Transcription factor One Cut Homeobox 1 (ONECUT1)/hepatocyte nuclear factor 6 (HNF6). The study uncovers novel forms of diabetes mellitus due to mutations in ONECUT1.<p cl...

Eur J Endocrinol, 2021. 185(5): p. 691-705. PMID: 34516402Brief Summary: This study evaluated the prevalence of genetic variants in children with idiopathic short stature (ISS) using next-generation sequencing (NGS). Heterozygous variants in known genes involved in skeletal physiology were identified in almost 20% of children. The use of advanced genetic analysis techniques will lead to an increased identification of new genetic variants, expand...

Science. 2021;373(6557):871-6. doi: 10.1126/science.abj8754 PubMed ID: 34282049Brief summary: This study reveals a Deep Learning method, ‘RoseTTA fold’, based on DeepMind’s Alphafold2 framework, to predict 3-dimensional protein structures from 1-dimensional sequence information and generate models of protein–protein complexes with high accuracy.Previ...

Brief Summary: This study significantly advances our understanding of the genetic underpinnings of congenital hypopituitarism (CH) by utilizing whole exome sequencing (WES) in a large cohort of patients from Argentina.CH is a complex and highly heterogeneous disorder that is associated with highly variable clinical phenotypes that range in severity (1). The aetiology of CH may extend beyond monogenic causes, involving oligogenic, polygenic, or multifacto...

Brief Summary:Heterozygous, de novo variants in KIF5B are identified in 4 individuals with osteogenesis imperfecta. Studies of these KIF5B variants in C. elegans and cell models reveal the disease-causing mechanism. KIF5B seems important for intracellular trafficking and mTOR signaling to maintain skeletal homeostasis.Several years after the description of the last new osteogenesis imperfecta (OI)-related gene, the authors repo...

Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2020 Oct 27;11:545638. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2020.545638. PMID: 33193079.Using human islets from CHI patients and islets from ABCC8 (SUR1) knockout mice, the authors tested several novel compounds to inhibit insulin over-secretion. These novel compounds targeted KATP channels as well as KATP indepe...

Nat Commun. 2021 Jun 7;12(1):3355. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-23661-4.This study describes the interaction of individual genetic variation for autoimmune thyroid disease with risk of thyroid immune related adverse events (irAE) during or after immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) treatment for advanced cancer.ICIs are monoclonal antibodies blocking T-cell exhaustion and...

Nat Commun. 2020;11:4807. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-18497-3.This interesting paper illustrates the potential of machine learning to improve the sensitivity and specificity of routine techniques in clinical practice if large cohorts for training and validation of models are used. Yu et al. present a transfer learning model (machine learning approach to solve research problems by r...

J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2020;105:3203–3214. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgaa443. PMID: 32652002The authors performed a large genome-wide association study (GWAS) to assess the role of common genetic variants in the response to GH therapy. A total of 614 children treated with GH were included: 276 with idiopathic GHD, 297 with ISS, and 41 born SGA. The findings implicate some novel mechanisms...