ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

To read the full abstract: Bone Marrow Transplant. 2018 Oct; 53 (10):1278Early cardiovascular disease is relatively common among childhood cancer survivors (CCS). A high risk of accelerated atherosclerosis and a 8.2-fold higher cardiac mortality rate have been reported (1). Arterial stiffness, an independent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in adults, seems to incre...

To read the full abstract: Nature Communications, 2019; 10 (1); 662This paper highlights the brain as a key target for growth hormone (GH) signaling affecting mostly energy conservation. To identify GH response neurons, C57BL/6 mice received intraperitoneal injection of saline or GH and their brains were processed to detect the phosphorylation of pSTAT5 as a marker of GH receptor a...

To read the full abstract: Circulation 2017;136:359-366The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Panel on integrated Guidelines for Cardiovascular Health and Risk Reduction in Children and Adolescents recommended a universal screening approach that would include one-time testing of all children aged 9-11 years for dyslipidemia. This recommendation has raised controversy regarding t...

Brief summary: Growth Hormone (GH)-Insulin-Growth-Factor-1 (IGF-1) axis plays the major role in promoting growth, but novel factors seem to modulate GH-IGF1 axis functioning. The majority of circulating IGF-1 and IGF-2 are bound to IGF-binding proteins (IGF-BPs) which prolong their half-life and regulate their tissue distribution (1,2). Pappalysins (PAPP-A, PAPP-A2) increase IGF-1 bioavailability through cleavage of IGFBPs and are inhibited by stanniocalcins (STC1, STC2) (3,4)...

In Brief: The authors created mouse embryos in the laboratory from a combination of multiple stem cell lines. These embryos were developed ex vivo up to the equivalent of day 8.5 post-fertilization. Embryos developed within an extraembryonic yolk sac and were similar to whole natural embryos, with defined forebrain and midbrain regions, a beating heart-like structure, a neural tube and somites, a tail bud containing neuromesodermal progenitors, a gut tube, and also pr...

Brief Summary: This study investigated the genetic determinants of thyroid function in newborns and (pre)school children by analyzing the associations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) previously identified in adults, and childhood TSH within the reference interval, and FT4 concentrations. It included three large population-based cohorts with data on genetic variants and thyroid function: Generation R (Netherlands), ALSPAC (UK), and BLTS (Australia), comprising 7,...

N Engl J Med 2021; 384:252–260 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2031054In the Yearbook, we have been following the CRISPR story since its very beginning. Last year, Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing tool. Here, scientists have published the first successful treatment (as...

Nat Neurosci. 2021 Dec;24(12):1660-1672. doi: 10.1038/s41593-021-00960-z. Epub 2021 Nov 18. PMID: 34795451. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00960-zBrief Summary: This neuroanatomical and physiological study in mice demonstrates that GnRH neurons attract glial cells in their vicinity via cell–cell communication...

To read the full abstract: Hum Mutat. 2020 May;41(5):884–905. doi: 10.1002/humu.23995. Epub 2020 Feb 17. PMID: 32027066Pancreatic KATPchannels play a key role in regulating insulin secretion. These channels are composed of four subunits of SUR1 and four subunits of KIR6.2 encoded by the ABCC8 and KNCJ11 genes, respectively. Inactivating mutations in these two g...

Abstract Link: Nat Genet. 2019 Jan;51(1):96–105.In brief: Gain-of-function mutations altering DNMT3A are identified as a new cause of microcephalic dwarfism. Modelling of the disease in mice show that the mutations abrogate DNMT3A binding to H3K36me2 and H3K36me3 and lead to aberrant DNA methylation of Polycomb-marked regions and therefore repression ...