ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

Nature 2022;602(7895):156-161. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34847567/Brief Summary: This study used a well-characterized mouse model of type 1 diabetes (T1D), the non-obese diabetic mouse (NOD), to examine the fate of CD8 T cells over the 5–30 week course of the disease. They found a stem-like autoimmune progenitor population in the pancreatic draining lymph nodes, which can self-re...

Nat Med. 2022 Mar;28(3):513–516. doi: 10.1038/s41591-022-01735-0. Epub 2022 Mar 21.Brief Summary: Currently, preimplantation genetic testing (PGT) is used to avoid specific rare Mendelian disorders before in-vitro fertilization (IVF). However, evidence is limited on the potential use of a polygenic risk score (PRS) that combines thousands of genetic variants as a predictor fo...

To read the full abstract: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2020 Feb 15. pii: dgaa078. doi: 10.1210/clinem/dgaa078. PMID: 32060556.Just another gene implicated in hypopituitarism? Yes, but it is a newish cilopathy gene in the hedgehog pathway. Hedgehog family of polypeptides (Sonic (Shh), Indian (Ihh) and desert (Dhh) hedgehog) are signaling molecules that are needed for many cellular events and pl...

To read the full abstract: Mol Genet Genomic Med., 2019 Oct;7(10):e00753. doi: 10.1002/mgg3.753. Epub 2019 Aug 23. PMID: 31441606The unique population in the State of Qatar comprises over 2.6 million people who derived primarily from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and South Asia regions. Around 15% are indigenous Qataris of Arabian Peninsula ancestries, who have also immigrated to the St...

To read the full abstract: J Clin Endocrinol Metab, April 2020, 105(4):e1478–e1488Silver–Russell syndrome (SRS) is a rare condition associated with pre and postnatal growth retardation. The most common causes of SRS are 11p15 ICR1 loss of methylation (LOM) and maternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 7 (mUPD7). Almost all patients with SRS have a history of intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR) and may be born small for gestational a...

To read the full abstract: Nat Metab 2019;1:1202–1208.Metformin has become a mainstay in the treatment of T2DM in over six decades of clinical use and is today one of the world’s most commonly prescribed drugs. Anti-diabetic properties of metformin rely on an inhibition of hepatic glucose output through AMPK-dependent, but also AMPK-independent effects (reviewed in (1)). Neverthel...

To read the full abstract: Science Advances 2019;5:eaaw7908This paper shows that the craniofacial and cognitive/behavioral phenotypes caused by alterations at the critical gene region for the Williams-Beuren syndrome is caused by changes in the chromatin remodeler BAZ1B in neural crest, and can serve as an entry point into the evolution of the modern human face and pro-sociality.Williams-Beuren syndrome is caused ...

To read the full abstract: Science 2019;365:eaat7693.These authors performed a genome-wide association study on 493 001 participants of European-ancestry from the USA, UK, and Sweden to identify genes associated with sexual orientation. They found multiple loci implicated in same-sex sexual behavior indicating that, like other behavioral traits, non-heterosexual behavior is polygenic.As many as 4% to 10% of US individuals ...

To read the full abstract: J Med Genet. 2018;55:693–700.This genetic study identified, by whole exome sequencing, mutations in the insulin receptor substrate 4 gene (IRS4) in 5 families with isolated central congenital hypothyroidism. Thus, the authors add a fifth genetic cause of isolated congenital hypothyroidism to the previously known genes: TSHB, TRHR, IGSF1, ...

To read the full abstract: Nat Commun. 2018 19;9:2394.“Somatopause” causes the physiological decline over time in GH secretion leading to low IGF-I levels in aging subjects. GH has been proposed as an anti-aging therapy, but with no evidence of beneficial effects and with some potential risks [1,2]. Therefore, current guidelines do not recommend GH therapy as anti-aging treatme...